GSK boosts vaccs ops with $300M Corixa buy

UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Corixa Corp, a US developer of vaccine technology, in a cash-for-stock deal of $4.00 per share, valuing the latter at around $300.0 million. The purchase will add to GSK's existing vaccines business, which brought in first-quarter 2005 sales of L248.0 million ($470.0 million; see page 3), and will mean that the UK firm, which already owns approximately 8% of Corixa, will no longer have to pay royalties on existing technology licensing deals.

As a result of the accord, GSK will acquire all scientific and business programs, activities, assets and related rights of Corixa. Importantly, GSK will acquire the company's manufacturing facility in Hamilton, Montana, USA, which makes Monophosphoryl Lipid A, a novel adjuvant contained in many of the vaccines in the UK firm's pipeline.

It will also gain all assets related to a candidate prophylactic tuberculosis vaccine and to a portfolio of potential immunotherapeutic cancer vaccine being developed by GSK Biologicals and which contain antigens discovered by Corixa, pursuant to a 1998 multi-field vaccine discovery collaboration between the parties. GSK will no longer be required to pay royalties related to these antigens. Corixa's portfolio also includes other compounds such as TLR4 agonists and antagonists.