New Swiss vaccines group formed by Bachem and Berna

Two Swiss biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, Bachem andBerna Biotech (formerly the Swiss Serum and Vaccine Institute), are to combine forces to set up a company to develop innovative vaccines. Bachem's peptide sector expertise and Berna's virosomes technology will form the basis for therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines to treat melanomas, malaria, hepatitis C and Alzheimer's disease.

The new company, in which both partners are taking a 50% stake, should be operational at the beginning of 2002 and is expected to take a leading role worldwide in the peptide sector. The first projects, ongoing preclinical programs, will be outsourced by Berna to the new company. Apart from traditional prophylactic vaccines, the development of therapeutic vaccines will play an important role, the firms say. These projects, along with a series of newly defined ones, are being developed in conjunction with universities and other companies, and will be taken through to Phase I and II clinical trials.