Pfizer and made an Equity Subscription Agreement with Valneva of France, which will be updating a collaboration and license deal for a Lyme disease vaccine that had been announced in the month of April 2020.
Under the terms of the agreement, the company ‘Pfizer’ is going to be investing 95 million dollars in Valneva, which is representing an 8.1 percent stake in the company. Valneva has been indicating that, it is going to use the proceeds for the purpose of supporting the company’s Phase III development program for the Lyme disease.
Pfizer is also expected for launching a Phase III trial of the VLA15, which is the experimental Lyme disease candidate of Valneva in the third quarter of 2022. In the terms of the updated collaboration and licensing component of the announcement, Valneva is now going to be funding 40 percent of the remaining shared development costs, which has been more from a past initial deal of 30 percent.
Pfizer is going to pay Valneva tiered royalties from 14 percent to 22 percent against the original agreement where they start 19 percent. The royalties are going to be completed by around 100 million dollars in the milestone payments to the cumulative sales of Valneva.
Kathrin U. Janse, Ph.D, senior vice president and heat of the Vaccine R&D at Pfizer said, the Lyme disease is continuing to place a large burden on the countries in the region of North America and Europe along with an estimated 600,000 cases every year across both the continents.
