Acuvax's Mission:
Our mission is to build on regulatory, commercialisation, capital raising and early stage vaccine & drug development expertise to develop leading diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine technologies which promise real benefits to human health, Acuvax will bring them to global markets through licensing partnerships with outstanding pharmaceutical partners and development organisations. We provide a culture of international excellence in research, licensing partnerships with leading scientists and development organisations, and focus on shareholder value creation. Acuvax’s team and renewed focus on vaccines has been favorably recognised in 2008-09 by PWC, Bioshares and Biotechnology News, and with significant share price gains in June and December 2008.
Why Vaccine Markets
Global pharmaceutical sales are approaching USD $ 600 billion annually, with CAGR of 6%. Market segments dealing with vaccines are growing far more rapidly (14%+), led by recent successes such as the $4B in annual sales expected by Gardasil (a cervical cancer vaccine, co-developed by Prof Ian Frazer, and advisor to Acuvax’s group of companies) in the coming years. Adult vaccines in particular represent a market segment deemed attractive by big vaccine companies, which has driven a recently announced $1B acquisition by Wyeth in the space. Vaccines are impacting most of our lives, with flu shots, special vaccinations before travel to certain overseas countries as protection. Acuvax’s approach and that of group companies involves the latest technology (eg recombinant DNA-based approaches), which benefits patients and which also can be scaled up for manufacturing and Big Pharma licensing partnerships as demands require. Many of the emerging infectious diseases targeted by the Acuvax group of companies include such major health challenges as Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and pandemic flu. For these debilitating infections, vaccines are the best way forward to ultimately prevent human mortality and lost economic productivity due to illness.
Some recently announced vaccine transactions:
- Wyeth (NYSE:WYE) launches US$1.35B bid for Crucell NV(NASDAQ:CRXL)
- Intercell AG (WBAG: ICLL) acquires Iomai Corp. (NASDAQ:IOMI) for US$189M
- Emergent Biosolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) acquires Protein Sciences Corp. Phase 3 recombinant Flu vaccine for US$80M
Attractive Business Case for Acuvax Investors
The vaccine sector is a segment of the global ethical drugs industry. Vaccines were first introduced against smallpox, cowpox and tuberculosis, and the sector has evolved to include markets for diagnostics (test kits to detect pathogens), preventative vaccines (to help the body develop an immune response to a potential disease) and therapeutic vaccines (to help the body combat infection after exposure to disease). Often, preventing disease involves exposing the body to particles of the disease which causes infection, to try to recruit the patient’s own immune system to prevent or treat a disease..
This can induce a strong and efficient immune response to infections that have otherwise evaded the normal surveillance of the patient’s immune system. In general Acuvax and its affiliates adopt the latest antigen-based technologies (recombinant proteins), because this permits efficient manufacturing and rapid scale up of production as well as providing a safer alternative to traditional vaccine approaches such as live attenuated vaccines. Acuvax investors can gain comfort that the group is employing the latest, patented technology. As the group seeks to offer treatments for very large disease markets such as Dengue, investors can take note of recent ‘blockbusters’ such as Gardasil (Merck and Sanofi Pasteur), Frevnar (Wyeth), Fluzone (Sanofi Aventis), Rotateq (Merck, Sanofi Pasteir), and Cevarix (GSK).
