Berna Biotech focus on Korean activities

Swiss company Berna Biotech has acquired the remaining 20% minority shares of its Korean affiliate, GreenCross Vaccine Corp, from GreenCross Corp. In return, GCVC will transfer the assets related to four Korean vaccine products, DTP, Japanese Encephalitis, Varicella and Hantavax, to GCC. This will result in a transfer of roughly 70 people to GCC with vaccines sales of around 10 million Swiss francs ($8.5 million).

With this move, Berna says that it will fully focus its Korean activities on the global hepatitis B franchise, consisting of the marketed Hepavax-Genea and pediatric hepatitis B combination vaccines in late-stage development.

Commenting on its business outlook, Berna said it expects good flu vaccines sales and is confident of reaching its growth objective of 20% in the core business. Financial results for the second half of 2004 will be significantly better than the first half-year. Consequently, the first half-year operating loss of 20.4 million francs will not change substantially for the full year 2004.