Sanofi-Aventis in licensing deal with Vivalis for MAb targeting infectious diseases and extends accord with Zealand for diabetes product

In what was another busy licensing day for French drug major Sanofi-Aventis, which since 2008 has already spent around $9 billion on some 12 acquisitions, the company this morning announced a deal by its vaccines division Sanofi Pasteur and one with Zealand amending a previous collaboration in diabetes.

Sanofi Pasteur signed a commercial license and collaboration agreement with Vivalis whereby it will acquire exclusive access to the latter's platform for the discovery of fully-human monoclonal antibodies targeting clinically significant infectious diseases, and will obtain worldwide exclusive development and commercialization rights for the discovered antibodies.

Vivalis will receive an upfront payment of 3 million euros ($3.6 million), and may receive development milestone payments of up to 35 million euros over the course of the development of each infectious disease indication, as well as royalty payments associated with product sales. In addition, Sanofi Pasteur will finance agreed upon collaborative research activities related to the infectious diseases programs.