CSL Limited announced that its subsidiary, CSL Seqirus, finalized its global collaboration and license agreement with Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc (“Arcturus Therapeutics”; NASDAQ: ARCT). The agreement grants access to Arcturus Therapeutics’ late stage self-amplifying mRNA (sa-mRNA) vaccine platform technology, which recently reported results from a large COVID-19 Phase III vaccine efficacy study, meeting its primary and secondary endpoints of prevention of infection and severe disease with a favorable safety and tolerability profile.
The agreement was announced last month and under the terms of the agreement, Arcturus Therapeutics will receive an upfront payment of US$200 million and will be eligible to receive further payments dependent upon the achievement of certain development and commercial milestones along with royalties/profit sharing on future product sales.
“This agreement provides CSL with an opportunity to strengthen and accelerate our goals for the next generation of mRNA vaccines and underscores our commitment to pursuing new and innovative ways of protecting public health,” said CSL Chief Operating Officer, Paul McKenzie. “This is a significant leap forward with a demonstrated platform that will allow us to further explore influenza-adjacent therapies.”
Under the agreement, CSL will have the exclusive license to Arcturus’ next generation mRNA technology in the fields of influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory viral diseases, and a non-exclusive license in the multi-pathogen pandemic preparedness field with the right to turn exclusive.
“Like gene therapy for rare diseases, sa-mRNA is a disruptive technology that is on the leading-edge of innovation when it comes to vaccine development,” said Dr. Bill Mezzanotte, Head of R&D and Chief Medical Officer, CSL. “Next-generation mRNA technology serves as one of our strategic scientific platforms at CSL and in our evaluation of Arcturus, we saw the right external innovation to strategically complement our in-house next-generation mRNA capabilities and reinforce our longstanding leadership in influenza.”