Bavarian Nordic owns several United States patents relating to an
attenuated strain of the company's core technology, MVA-BN®, which is
the basis for its smallpox vaccine, IMVAMUNE®. MVA-BN® also holds
promise as a vector for delivering recombinant vaccines. Bavarian
Nordic has asserted three US patents as a basis for its infringement
action. The claim in this case is that Oxford BioMedica has infringed
Bavarian Nordic's patents by commercializing the patented technology
in ways that have yielded large payments from Sanofi-Aventis under
the agreement between them for the development and commercialization
of TroVax®.
Oxford BioMedica argues that the law suit is premature because
TroVax® is still being evaluated in clinical trials.
In Bavarian Nordic's patent infringement suit against Oxford
BioMedica, in the United States, the Judge has for procedural reasons
dismissed the first complaint but has encouraged Bavarian Nordic to
file a new complaint within 14 days, to provide the court with more
information. Bavarian Nordic will file such a new complaint and thus
the case is still pending at the court awaiting new information from
Bavarian Nordic.
If the court eventually should decide to dismiss the suit this
decision will bear no influence on the substance of the patent case.
It only influences the timing of the start of the infringement case.
Anders Hedegaard President and CEO of Bavarian Nordic: "Until now
Bavarian Nordic has successfully defended its valuable intellectual
property related to the MVA technology. We will continue vigorously
to defend our patents against any infringement that threatens
Bavarian Nordic's full commercialization of its intellectual
property".
Kvistgård, 12 January 2009
Asger Aamund
Chairman
