Release issued 23rd October 2003

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) today announces that it has successfully concluded a deal in which it has licensed the rights to a patent for the manufacture of a multi- component meningitis B vaccine to Chiron Vaccines. This fulfils a strategic goal of the Agency to develop its intellectual assets in partnership with industry in order to benefit UK health protection.

The deal provides Chiron with an exclusive royalty-bearing licence whilst enabling the HPA to continue its research and development activities in the field. In return, Chiron will pay the HPA a signing-on fee, with other terms of the agreement including milestone payments for product development through to market and a royalty income from any commercial sale of vaccine.

Currently there are no vaccines available for the prevention of disease caused by serogroup B strains of Neisseria meningitidis that are responsible for 32% of all meningococcal disease in the United States and between 45- 80% of cases in Europe (80% in UK). By contrast, recently developed vaccines against serogroup C have proved to be very successful in reducing the incidence of this serious disease in recent years. The Health Protection Agency is actively developing new candidate vaccines to protect against meningococcal disease and the techniques required for their assessment.

Commenting on the deal, Dr Roger Hinton, business manager responsible for meningitis vaccine development and licensing at HPA Porton Down, stated "this is an excellent example of how the first class research performed within the HPA can be exploited commercially to assist in the development of a vaccine against this debilitating and often fatal disease."

(15th September 2008) Funding for Design of New State of the Art Facilities at Health Protection Agency’s Porton Down Site Announced

(17th July 2008) HPA receives Capacity Building Award

(17th July 2008) Health Protection Agency to Design Laboratories for Samples from Mars

(22nd January 2007) Development of a Pan Meningococcal Vaccine for the World

(22nd November 2005) Health Protection Agency and OPi Pharmaceuticals launch drug to help children fight leukaemia