Months af­ter se­cur­ing up to $21 mil­lion in fund­ing from the Coali­tion for Epi­dem­ic Pre­pared­ness In­no­va­tions (CEPI) for its Chikun­gun­ya vac­cine — which is be­ing prepped for a late-stage tri­al — Vi­en­na, Aus­tria-based Themis Bio­science en­tered in­to a pact with US drug­mak­er Mer­ck.

The Eu­ro­pean vac­cine de­vel­op­er formed in 2009 and a year lat­er joined forces with the In­sti­tut Pas­teur — gain­ing ex­clu­sive ac­cess to a measles virus vac­cine vec­tor tech­nol­o­gy, which now forms the back­bone of its plat­form.

Con­sid­er­ing it has been used to vac­ci­nate bil­lions of peo­ple, the at­ten­u­at­ed measles virus is one of the most ef­fec­tive and safe vac­cines avail­able, mak­ing it an at­trac­tive can­di­date vec­tor to avert in­fec­tious dis­ease.

In con­trast to oth­er ap­proach­es, Themis has de­vel­oped the tech­nol­o­gy to in­cor­po­rate mul­ti­ple large re­com­bi­nant pro­tein anti­gens in­to the vec­tor, which then acts as a de­liv­ery ve­hi­cle to trans­port the anti­gen pay­load di­rect­ly to macrophages and den­drit­ic cells. Fur­ther, since the vec­tor it­self repli­cates — there­by ex­press­ing anti­gens even af­ter im­mu­niza­tion — Themis’ vac­cine can­di­dates are en­gi­neered to con­fer long-term im­mu­ni­ty, chief Erich Tauber told End­points News.

Apart from its lead ex­per­i­men­tal Chikun­gun­ya vac­cine, Themis has a Zi­ka vac­cine and Las­sa fever in ear­ly-stage de­vel­op­ment. It al­so has a range of pre­clin­i­cal pro­grams, in­clud­ing those for res­pi­ra­to­ry syn­cy­tial virus (RSV), cy­tomegalovirus (CMV), norovirus and Mid­dle East Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­drome (MERS).

The vec­tor al­so has the in­trin­sic abil­i­ty to at­tack can­cer cells, which has been demon­strat­ed in var­i­ous pre­clin­i­cal stud­ies, he added. The com­pa­ny is there­fore cap­i­tal­iz­ing on that po­ten­tial by equip­ping the vec­tor with ad­di­tion­al tu­mor-killing pay­loads to de­vel­op on­col­o­gy treat­ments. Themis’s first im­muno-on­col­o­gy vac­cine is set to en­ter the clin­ic this year.

The terms of the Mer­ck $MRK part­ner­ship are shroud­ed in mys­tery. The two will work on a “block­buster in­di­ca­tion” and the New Jer­sey-based drug man­u­fac­tur­er will grant up to $200 mil­lion in mile­stone pay­ments, in ad­di­tion to roy­al­ties. Mer­ck has al­so made an undis­closed eq­ui­ty in­vest­ment in Themis.

Mer­ck, which has been bask­ing in the suc­cess of its flag­ship check­point in­hibitor Keytru­da, caus­ing some to wor­ry it may be lean­ing too heav­i­ly on the block­buster, has sharp­ened its fo­cus on its vac­cine port­fo­lio. In May, its pneu­mo­coc­cal con­ju­gate vac­cine can­di­date aimed at top­pling Pfiz­er’s best­seller, Pre­vnar 13, cleared a mid-stage study — and is al­so be­ing eval­u­at­ed in var­i­ous Phase III tri­als. Mer­ck al­so has a part­ner­ship with mR­NA com­pa­ny Mod­er­na $MR­NA, fo­cused on per­son­al­ized can­cer vac­cines that are cus­tomized for each pa­tient.

Biotech is one of the smartest, best educated industries on the planet. PhDs abound. We’ve had a long enough track record to see a new generation of savvy, experienced execs coming together to run startups.

And in these times, they are being tested as never before.

Biotech is going through quite a rough patch right now. For 2 years, practically anyone with a decent resume and some half-baked ideas on biotech could start a company and get it funded. The pandemic made it easy in many ways to pull off an IPO, with traditional road shows shut down in exchange for a series of quick Zoom meetings. Generalist investors flocked as the numbers raised soared into the stratosphere.

It looks like Warren Buffett is sticking to ice cream and railroads for the moment.

The billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway backed out of two major holdings in the pharma industry, Forexlive first reported, including a $410 million investment in AbbVie and a $324.4 million stake in Bristol Myers Squibb.

The move comes after Berkshire abandoned its Teva shares just last quarter, Bloomberg reported.

Nearly a year ago, more than 200 workers at Novartis’ Grimsby, UK, facility were able to hang on to their jobs after the pharma closed a Switzerland site as a part of its workforce restructuring plan. Now, it looks like those employees’ time is up, as the site has been sold, Grimsby Telegraph reported today.

The manufacturing site has been sold to Humber Industrials, a subsidiary of International Process Plants. None of the current staff members will be working with the new owners, however.