EuBiologics, a Korean Covid-19 vaccine developer, is expected to license out a vaccine adjuvant technology to a U.S. biopharmaceutical company, industry sources said.
The vaccine adjuvant market used to be dominated by multinational pharmaceutical companies, but industry officials pay attention to whether a homegrown vaccine adjuvant will become successful.
According to sources on Friday, EuBiologics will soon license out its adjuvant EcML to Adjuvance Technologies, a U.S. biopharmaceutical firm.
A vaccine adjuvant is a key factor in vaccine development, along with a vaccine antigen and a drug delivery vehicle. An adjuvant is added when an immune response cannot be obtained sufficiently with the vaccine antigen alone.
Earlier on Tuesday, EuBiologics signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Adjuvance Technologies to export raw and subsidiary materials for vaccine candidates at the Korea-U.S. Global Vaccine Partnership Event in New York, which President Moon Jae-in attended.
If the MOU leads to a final deal, Eubiologics is expected to transfer a technology to produce strains to manufacture the vaccine adjuvant EcML (E. coli made monophosphoryl lipid A) to Adjuvance Technologies. However, the size of the deal is yet to be confirmed.
In 2017, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) transferred the EcML-generating strain production technology to EuBiologics. If EuBiologics clinches a licensing deal with Adjuvance Technologies, the company will pay royalties to KIST. The licensing fee will be 2 to 5 percent of net sales.
EuBiologics said it could not confirm the licensing deal yet but showed confidence about its technology.
Multinational drugmakers such as GSK and Novartis have patents and key technologies for vaccine adjuvant, a key in vaccine development.
EuBiologics said it applied EcML technology to EuCorVac-19, an investigational Covid-19 vaccine. The company added EcML (TLR4 agonist) in liposomes to the Covid-19 virus antigen made by genetic recombination.
Other companies such as SK Bioscience and Novavax are also using adjuvants to develop Covid-19 vaccines. The two companies get adjuvants from GSK.
“We can produce not only a vaccine candidate but also an adjuvant with our technology. This will be a great advantage for our future vaccine development,” an official at EuBiologics said.
On Wednesday, when the news on the Korea-U.S. vaccine partnership came out, EuBiologics shares jumped 11.52 percent to close at 51,300 won ($43.6).