China’s National Medicinal Products Administration has approved Walvax’s bivalent HPV vaccine for the prevention of cervical cancer caused by HPV 16 and HPV 18, Chinese media sources reported last week.
The shot will compete for domestic market share against GSK, Merck, and China’s Xiamen Innovax.
Xiamen Innovax announced last week that it is licensing its rotavirus technology to Sanofi to develop and commercialize outside China. GBI Source reported that Sanofi will pay the Chinese biotech $68 million (including milestones) for the rights, plus 1-2% royalties on net sales.
Meanwhile, Sanofi quietly indicated in its July 29 earnings press release that it will drop a much-delayed deal with Daiichi Sankyo to develop a pediatric polio-containing pentavalent shot for Japan.
The state of the hunt:
China National Biotec Group (CNBG) announced last week that the China State Drug Administration has approved its 11-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to enter Phase 1. Rival Chinese suppliers Xiamen Innovax Biotech and Shanghai Zerun Biotech are already in Phase 3—however, only with bivalent products. If successful, CNBG would boast the world’s most broadly protective HPV shot.
In other HPV news, Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic also announced last week that it is starting Phase 1/2a…