Coronavirus moleculeA&O, Bakers Lead On GSK Deal in Coronavirus Vaccine Hunt
GSK is taking a 10% stake in a German drugmaker CureVac, one of the players in the race to find a vaccine for COVID-19.
July 21, 2020 at 04:30 AM
2 minute read
Allen & Overy and Baker McKenzie have picked up roles on the acquisition of a 10% stake in German biotech company CureVac by British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline.
GSK is making an equity investment in CureVac of £130 million as well as a cash payment of £104 million to fund research and development of mRNA vaccines, a technology that could potentially be harnessed for immunisation against the Coronavirus.
The deal puts GSK in a position to take advantage of future technologies that are already being used in potential COVID-19 vaccines, despite the transaction not including CureVac's existing COVID-19 and rabies vaccine programmes.
A cross-border Allen & Overy team is advising longtime client GSK on the transaction, with a team headed up by London corporate partner Peter Banks and intellectual property partner Nigel Parker and by Frankfurt M&A partner Michael Weiss.
The firm's GSK relationship partner Matthew Appleton also advised on the deal alongside the firm's German antitrust head Ellen Braun, who is based in Hamburg, as well as Amsterdam-based corporate partner Christiaan de Brauw, Munich M&A partner Alexander Veith, New York M&A partner Stephen Besen and Frankfurt ECM partner Marc Plepelits.
Baker McKenzie, meanwhile, is advising CureVac on the collaboration and license agreement on five products in the field of infectious diseases, alongside German law firm Rittershaus.
Baker McKenzie Munich-based IP partner Constanze Ulmer-Eilfort led the team alongside Zurich IP partners Julia Schieber in Zurich and Andreas Jauch in Frankfurt, with Berlin competition partner Christian Burholt and Frankfurt pharma regulatory partner Thilo Räpple also advising.
Other law firms to have picked up recent roles advising on Coronavirus vaccines include Gowling WLG, which said in June that it has been advising AstraZeneca on a collaboration agreement for the development and distribution of the University of Oxford's potential vaccine.
The University of Oxford revealed on Monday that the early stages of its COVID-19 vaccine trial had shown promising results and was seen to be safe.
|Read More
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