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Core Competences

• Vaccines
• Third Generation
• MVA-BN®
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• Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property

The Patent Portfolio

Bavarian Nordic has successfully built its patent portfolio on and around its core technology; MVA-BN®. A strong patent portfolio underpins Bavarian Nordic's competitive position in MVA-based vaccines. Bavarian Nordic's patent portfolio directed to aspects of MVA consists of 30 patent families. Each of these patent families consists of numerous corresponding issued/granted foreign patents, pending applications, continuations and divisional applications. The patent portfolio comprises more than 300 pending patent applications and more than 650 granted/issued patents. Moreover, Bavarian Nordic seeks to avoid possible design-around attempts by competitors through a proactive patent strategy.

Besides its core IP, Bavarian Nordic has obtained protection for, and continues to file further applications to protect relevant supporting technologies. Bavarian Nordic has also acquired exclusive rights to non-MVA technologies including other viruses and production processes from other patent holders. 

The MVA Platform

Bavarian Nordic's competitive IP protection gives exclusive rights to manufacture, sell and market its MVA-based technology globally. Six patents have been issued thus far to Bavarian Nordic in the United States and one for the European countries within the patent family covering an MVA virus variant referred to as MVA-BN® exhibiting an improved safety profile compared to other MVA viruses. These patents cover the MVA-BN® virus and derivatives thereof, IMVAMUNE® (Bavarian Nordic's smallpox vaccine), and its use as vector technology.

Patent protection for the vaccination of infants with MVA-based vaccines has also been obtained. Further applications on aspects of the MVA vaccine technology are pending for rapid and immediate immune responses.

Recombinant MVA-based Vaccines

The MVA-BN® patents cover the use of recombinant vaccines as a vector to deliver antigens for various indications. Bavarian Nordic's exclusive rights further cover certain aspects of recombinant MVA vaccines for cancer, HIV and other infectious indications created by inserting foreign genes into the MVA genome and effective promoters for doing so.

Cancer Vaccines

In the cancer field, Bavarian Nordic's US subsidiary BN ImmunoTherapeutics Inc. (BNIT) has acquired exclusive rights to material IP covering PROSTVAC™. The core patents that are exclusively licensed for PROSTVAC™ provide BNIT with exclusive rights covering claims issued to the relevant prostate-specific antigen ("PSA"), PSA oligo-epitope peptides and analogs thereof used in PROSTVAC™, including various immunogenic compositions comprising the relevant PSAs and pox virus vectors expressing peptide agonists of PSA. In addition, BNIT has non-exclusive rights to related technologies relevant for this project.

Vaccine Manufacturing

The current manufacturing process used for Bavarian Nordic's MVA-based vaccines, including the smallpox vaccine production, is primarily protected as a trade secret and is therefore not disclosed to competitors.