Acambis loss down 43%, on Novartis deal

UK-based vaccines developer Acambis says that its loss for the full year 2006 was L15.8 million ($31.0 million), a reduction of 42.6% from the L27.7 million deficit it recorded in 2007. Acambis explained that the turnaround was due in part to a L10.1 million settlement it received from Swiss drug major Novartis, in relation to its divestiture of Berna Biotech (Marketletter October 9, 2006).

On the negative side, Acambis said that the US Department of Health and Human Services' decision not to award it a contact under its MVA smallpox vaccine program was a set back. It said that the news had overshadowed positive data from several of its key R&D programs, including its developmental Clostridium difficile and West Nile vaccines.

The firm added that its recently-established partnership with Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of French drug major Sanofi-Aventis (Marketletter February 19), to commercialize its Japanese encephalitis vaccine Chimeri/Vax-JE, will begin to contribute revenues in the next few months. Its share price rose 0.5 pence to 141.5 pence on March 15.