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Pfizer has acquired a stake in Valneva, a French biotech company, to jointly develop a vaccine for Lyme disease. The former entered into an Equity Subscription Agreement with Valneva and will begin collaboration for the development of a vaccine candidate.
According to Reuters, Pfizer, an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation, will be investing $90.5 million euros or around $95.24 million for the acquisition of an 8.1% stake in Valneva. This is said to represent a price of €9.49 per share, and Pfizer is buying this via a reserved capital increase.
Once it receives the payment from Pfizer, it was reported that the French biotech firm would be using it to support its development contribution to the Lyme disease program, which is already in Phase 3. Pfizer and Valneva also updated the terms of their partnership as well as the license agreement for the VLA15 Lyme disease vaccine candidate. The companies first announced their collaboration in April 2020.
At any rate, Pfizer previously revealed that it is planning to start the Phase 3 study of VLA15 in the Q3 of this year. In the updated deal, Valneva will be funding 40% of the remaining shared costs in the development. Before the revision, the percentage was only 30%.
“Pfizer’s investment in Valneva highlights the quality of the work that we’ve done together over the past two years and is a strong recognition of Valneva’s vaccine expertise,” Valneva’s chief executive officer, Thomas Lingelbach, said in a press release. “Lyme disease is spreading and impacts the lives of millions of people so we are looking forward to further investigating our VLA15 candidate in Phase 3, which will take us a step closer to potentially help protect both adults and children from this devastating disease.”
Kathrin U. Jansen, Ph.D., Pfizer’s senior vice president and lead of vaccine research & development, further said, “As the geographic footprint of Lyme disease widens, the medical need for vaccination becomes even more imperative and we are excited to continue partnering with Valneva on the development of VLA15.”
Finally, Valneva and Pfizer’s equity investment is set to close on Wednesday, June 22.
