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Imperial Innovations Group licenses Meningitis B vaccine

28 Jan 2010 - Imperial Innovations Group plc has entered into a licence agreement with Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, a division of Novartis. Under the terms of the agreement, Novartis has been granted a worldwide, exclusive licence to the intellectual property (IP) for a novel vaccine candidate against Meningitis B. Innovations has received an upfront payment and is entitled to ongoing IP licence fees, success based milestones and royalties on product sales. Further financial terms are not disclosed.
 
The new vaccine candidate is based on the work of Professor Christoph Tang’s research group at Imperial College London and collaborator Professor Susan Lea at Oxford University. The candidate is currently in the preclinical stage of development. Under the agreement, Novartis will fund a £1m research and development programme over two years at Imperial College London, Oxford University and the Health Protection Agency, aimed at further validation of the candidate in preclinical models.
 
Vaccines are already commercially available against the Meningitis A and C strains. However, the Meningitis B strain of the bacterium is not addressed by current vaccines and presents a significant disease burden – it accounts for around 90% of cases of the disease in the UK, with around 150 deaths annually. This novel vaccine candidate has the potential to produce an enhanced immune response, which may confer greater protection against the disease than existing candidates currently in development.