Merck has inked an option and license agreement with Evaxion Biotech for two of its AI-designed vaccine candidates, bolstering an existing relationship between the drugmakers.
Under Thursday’s deal, Merck will get the option for an exclusive license for both preclinical candidates: EVX-B3 for an unnamed bacteria-driven infectious disease, and a separate protein-based vaccine asset for gonorrhea known as EVX-B2.
The upfront is a modest $3.2 million and could go up to $10 million next year if Merck exercises the option for one or both of the candidates. But the biotech could also get up to $592 million in milestones for each program, as well as royalties on net sales, according to a Thursday release.
Christian KanstrupMerck is set to take “full responsibility” for clinical development of both programs going forward, Evaxion CEO Christian Kanstrup told Endpoints News in an interview.
If either preclinical asset reaches clinical trials, the exact design of the studies would depend on whether Merck wants to develop a “truly prophylactic vaccine” or also sees some benefit in administering it to patients who are already infected, chief scientific officer Birgitte Rønø said.
Merck and the Danish biotech first started working together back in 2021, when Merck agreed to supply Keytruda to test in combination with Evaxion’s cancer immunotherapy candidate EVX-01. Last year, the duo signed a separate discovery pact for EVX-B3.
Evaxion’s AI-driven candidate development process starts with feeding its AI-Immunology platform with data, such as the whole proteome of a pathogen, Rønø said. The platform then “scans through this whole proteome and identifies smaller units, smaller antigens, that are most likely to induce a protective response,” which can then help narrow down vaccine targets.
Birgitte RønøThe platform is “trained on whatever data we can get our hands on in the public space, and also on proprietary data that we have generated to fill out gaps in the public data set,” Rønø said.
Evaxion decided to develop EVX-B2 for gonorrhea because of a growing incidence of the disease globally and increasing challenges with antibiotic resistance, Rønø said.
As for Evaxion’s partnership strategy, the company hopes to continue with novel target discovery deals, but also “partner our existing pipeline candidates when the time is right,” Kanstrup said. “Our focus is starting with the AI-Immunology platform and then building upon a multi-partner approach.”