Australia's Vaxine makes unsolicited bid for Protein Sciences

Australia-based Vaxine Pty says that it made an unsolicited bid to acquire Protein Sciences Corp, a privately-held vaccine company located in Meriden, Connecticut, USA. The terms of the proposed offer were not disclosed but include a stock-for-stock exchange and the assumption of liabilities with a potential total deal value in excess of $60.0 million.

Nikolai Petrovsky, chairman of Vaxine, said: "we have been following Protein Sciences for some time and are impressed with its vaccine products and patented cell line and rapid progress in bringing their influenza vaccines through the US regulatory process." He added: "we already are a major collaborator under "Request for Proposal" for a major Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) influenza vaccine contract and we believe that the two companies combined will be in a much stronger position to receive this extremely important contract and bring a range of exciting new vaccines to market."

Vaxine is developing a portfolio of vaccines, both therapeutic and prophylactic, to treat infectious diseases, allergy, autoimmunity and cancer. These vaccines are underpinned by the firm's novel technologies which include the Advax range of highly effective adjuvants which are without peer plus a wide range of novel vaccine antigens from Vitsantigen discovery programs.