BioVaxys Acquires Full Portfolio of Former IMV

BioVaxys Technology announced on Feb. 12, 2024 that has acquired the entire portfolio of discovery, preclinical, and clinical development-stage assets from IMV Inc., Immunovaccine Technologies, and IMV USA. These assets were being developed in the oncology, infectious disease, antigen desensitization, and other immunological fields and were based on IMV’s DPX immune educating platform technology.

As part of the transaction, BioVaxys also acquired the extensive technology portfolio of these assets from HIMV, LLC, an acquisition division formed by Horizon Technology Finance and IMV’s other secured creditors. HIMV was formed for the purpose of acquiring IMV’s intellectual property through a secured party credit bid. The transaction is anticipated to close by Feb. 22, 2024.

Under the deal, BioVaxys will pay $750,000 upfront in cash. It will also make various clinical development and regulatory milestone payments and will pay a 15% share in license revenues as well as a 6% gross sales royalty on product sales. BioVaxys will also pay in shares of its common stock, valued at an aggregate of $250,000.

Through the acquisition, BioVaxys gains maveropepimut-S (MVP-S), a DPX-formulated cancer vaccine designed to deliver antigenic peptides from survivin, a cancer antigen commonly overexpressed in advanced cancers. MVP-S also delivers an innate immune activator and a universal CD4 T-cell helper peptide. MVP-S was recently in Phase IIb clinical trials for advanced relapsed-refractory diffuse large b cell lymphoma and platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. It is also being clinically evaluated in bladder and breast cancer.

The DPX antigen delivery platform is designed to stimulate a specific, coordinated, and persistent anti-tumor immune response and can package a wide range of bioactive molecules in a single formulation, such as multiple nucleic acids/messenger RNA (mRNA), proteins, peptides, virus-like particles, innate immune activators, and small molecules. Thus packaged, these molecules can then be “fed” to dendritic cells and antigen presenting cells to stimulate a specific immune response.

“The DPX platform and addition of maveropepimut-S to our pre-existing clinical pipeline immediately positions BioVaxys as a major player in ovarian cancer and expands our pipeline to include advanced relapsed-refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), bladder, and breast cancer,” said Kenneth Kovan, president and chief operating officer, BioVaxys, in a company press release.“We see tremendous commercial potential with the DPX platform, which was a major driver of the transaction. The range of antigens that can be packaged and the cargo capacity of DPX present the opportunity for BioVaxys to monetize multiple development partnerships such as in the multi-valent and mRNA vaccine fields, expand our own immunotherapeutric pipeline, and establish what we believe will be an almost perpetual string of new BioVaxys IP derived from novel DPX formulations. We envision DPX enabling new immunotherapeutics not just from BioVaxys, but from a number of other companies via business development partnerships.”

Source: BioVaxys