Bavarian Nordic A/S is a fully integrated

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

company focused on the development, manufacturing and commercialization of vaccines for infectious diseases and cancer immunotherapies. The company is headquartered in

Hellerup Hellerup () is a very affluent district of Gentofte Municipality in the suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark. The most urban part of the district is centred on Strandvejen and is bordered by Østerbro to the south and the Øresund to the east. It compri ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

, with a manufacturing facility in

Kvistgård Kvistgård is a small town in the southwestern outskirts of Helsingør, Helsingør Municipality, some 40 kilometres north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is situated in the fork between the Helsingør Motorway to the east, separating it from Espergærde ...

, and an additional site in

Hørsholm Hørsholm () is an urban area on the Øresund coast approximately north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It covers most of Hørsholm Municipality and straddles the borders neighbouring Fredensborg Municipality and Rudersdal Municipality. Hørsholm prope ...

. The company has a research and development facility in

Martinsried Martinsried is one of Munich's two science suburbs. It is a section of Planegg municipality in the district of Munich in Bavaria, Germany. Martinsried is best known as the location of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, the Max Planck Inst ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and offices in

Zug , neighboring_municipalities = Cham, Baar, Walchwil, Steinhausen, Unterägeri , twintowns = Fürstenfeld (Austria), Kalesija (Bosnia-Herzegowina) Zug (Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; french: Zoug it, Zugo r ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, and

Morrisville, North Carolina Morrisville is a town located primarily in Wake County, North Carolina, United States (a small portion extends into neighboring Durham County). The population was 18,576 at the 2010 census. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the town's population t ...

. The company uses

viral vector Viral vectors are tools commonly used by molecular biologists to deliver genetic material into cells. This process can be performed inside a living organism (''in vivo'') or in cell culture (''in vitro''). Viruses have evolved specialized molecul ...

s in its research and development.

Technologies

MVA-BN

MVA-BN is a proprietary technology developed by Bavarian Nordic. It is derived from the

Modified vaccinia Ankara Modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) is an attenuated (weakened) strain of the vaccinia virus. It is being used as a vaccine (called MVA-BN, brand names: Imvanex in the EU, Imvamune in Canada, and Jynneos in the US) against smallpox and monkeypox, havi ...

virus. MVA-BN is characterized by the inability to replicate in human cells, contrary to other

vaccinia ''Vaccinia virus'' (VACV or VV) is a large, complex, enveloped virus belonging to the poxvirus family. It has a linear, double-stranded DNA genome approximately 190 kbp in length, which encodes approximately 250 genes. The dimensions of the ...

-based vaccines, which may replicate in humans, thus potentially causing severe and life-threatening side effects. Developed as the non-replicating

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

and

monkeypox Monkeypox (also called mpox by the WHO) is an infectious viral disease that can occur in humans and some other animals. Symptoms include fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash that forms blisters and then crusts over. The time from exposure to ...

vaccine, MVA-BN is approved in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Imvamune The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox ...

, in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

, as

Imvanex The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox ...

, and the United States as

Jynneos The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox ...

. The vaccine was supplied for emergency use to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile as well as other government stockpiles. The vaccine is being deployed worldwide to combat the

2022 monkeypox outbreak An ongoing outbreak of monkeypox, a viral disease, was confirmed in May 2022. The initial cluster of cases was found in the United Kingdom, where the first case was detected in London on 6 May 2022 in a patient with a recent travel his ...

, leading to concerns over vaccine nationalism and hoarding by countries with pre-existing contracts.

Vaccinia-fowlpox-TRICOM

A second poxvirus-based technology is employed in most of the company's cancer immunotherapies, and was in-licensed as part of a collaboration with the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

(NCI). Vaccinia-fowlpox-TRICOM is a sequential prime-boost therapy based on vaccinia and fowlpox in combination with three co-stimulatory molecules (TRICOM). The poxvirus-based immunotherapy can be modified to encode different tumor-associated antigens such as

Prostate-specific antigen Prostate-specific antigen (PSA), also known as gamma-seminoprotein or kallikrein-3 (KLK3), P-30 antigen, is a glycoprotein enzyme encoded in humans by the ''KLK3'' gene. PSA is a member of the kallikrein-related peptidase family and is secreted b ...

(PSA),

Carcinoembryonic antigen Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) describes a set of highly related glycoproteins involved in cell adhesion. CEA is normally produced in gastrointestinal tissue during fetal development, but the production stops before birth. Consequently, CEA is ...

(CEA) and/or Mucin 1 (MUC1), which are all tumor markers that are overexpressed in various cancers. This technology formed the basis of the company's lead oncology product candidates, Prostvac and CV-301.

Ebola vaccine development and production

The company has worked for several years with the

NIAID The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's ...

on the development of a

filovirus ''Filoviridae'' () is a family of single-stranded negative-sense RNA viruses in the order ''Mononegavirales''. Two members of the family that are commonly known are Ebola virus and Marburg virus. Both viruses, and some of their lesser known rel ...

vaccine for

Ebola Ebola, also known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates, caused by ebolaviruses. Symptoms typically start anywhere between two days and three weeks after becom ...

and

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...

hemorrhagic fever Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are a diverse group of animal and human illnesses in which fever and hemorrhage are caused by a viral infection. VHFs may be caused by five distinct families of RNA viruses: the families ''Filoviridae'', ''Flav ...

diseases. In October 2014, following a successful pre-clinical demonstration of the combination vaccine regimen of its multivalent MVA-BN Filovirus vaccine and Crucell/Janssen's AdVac technology based on adenoviral vectors, Bavarian Nordic joined efforts with Crucell Holland B.V., one of the

Janssen Pharmaceuticals Janssen Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Beerse, Belgium, and wholly-owned by Johnson & Johnson. It was founded in 1953 by Paul Janssen. In 1961, Janssen Pharmaceuticals was purchased by New Jersey-based American c ...

companies of

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

to develop and manufacture this vaccine regimen intended for emergency use to help contain the outbreak in West Africa. In January 2015, the company had produced the first 400,000 doses of the vaccine and the first clinical trial of the vaccine regimen was initiated in the UK, with additional trials planned in the US and Africa. It was approved for medical use in the European Union in July 2020.

Acquisition of rabies- and TBE-vaccines from GSK

Following announcement of

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. GSK is the ten ...

(GSK) on 21 October 2019, Bavarian Nordic acquired 2 vaccines from the traveler portfolio of GSK Vaccines: Rabipur(/Rabavert) and Encepur.

Marketed products and pipeline

Bavarian Nordic's marketed products and pipeline, as of July 2020.

Associations

Bavarian Nordic is a member of the

Alliance for Biosecurity The Alliance for Biosecurity is a consortium of companies that develop products to respond to national security threats, including bioterrorism pathogens and emerging infectious diseases. It is headquartered in Washington DC. Background The Un ...

, a group of companies that work towards preventing and treating severe infectious diseases, especially those that present global security challenges. The company is a funding partner of the

Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, formerly known as the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, is an organization of former high-ranking government officials that analyzes US capabilities and capacity to defend against biological threats. A ...

, and a former donor to the

Bipartisan Policy Center The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is a Washington, D.C.–based think tank that promotes bipartisanship. The organization aims to combine ideas from both the Republican and Democratic parties to address challenges in the U.S. BPC focuses on iss ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Pharmaceutical companies of Denmark Biotechnology companies of Denmark Danish companies established in 1994 Life science companies based in Copenhagen Companies based in Gentofte Municipality Pharmaceutical companies established in 1994 Companies listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen Companies traded over-the-counter in the United States