OUR PARTNERSHIPS We celebrate partnerships and strive to achieve the common goal of saving and improving patient's lives. 

In September 2024, Evaxion significantly expanded its vaccine development collaboration with MSD (tradename of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA) through an option and license agreement.  Under the terms of the agreement, Evaxion has granted MSD an option to exclusively license Evaxion’s preclinical vaccine candidates EVX-B2 and EVX-B3. EVX-B2 is a protein-based candidate for Gonorrhea and EVX-B3 targets a bacterial pathogen. In return, Evaxion receives an upfront payment of $3.2 million and up to $10 million in 2025, contingent upon MSD exercising its option to license either one or both candidates. In addition, Evaxion is eligible for development, regulatory and sales milestone payments with a potential value of up to $592 million per product, as well as royalties on net sales.

In September 2023, Evaxion entered a discovery partnership with Afrigen Biologics and the recently created mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub. The hub was established by the World Health Organization and Medicines Patent Pool with the goal of achieving equitable access to mRNA vaccines for low and middle-income countries.

The partnership aims to design and test a prophylactic vaccine based on Evaxion’s EDEN™ identified Neisseria gonorrhea targets. The EDEN™-discovered antigens have demonstrated high levels of protection in preclinical studies. This partnership will explore the expression and biological activity of the antigens in the mRNA delivery platform developed at Afrigen. Following the validation phase, the partners will negotiate a subsequent agreement for clinical development and commercialization, with the opportunity to bring in additional partners. Afrigen has the rights to take the resulting vaccine into clinical development and commercialization in low- and middle-income countries. Evaxion retains all rights to develop the program in other parts of the world.

In December 2022, Evaxion entered a vaccine discovery collaboration with ExpreS2ion Biotechnologies for the joint development of a novel cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine candidate. Evaxion will use its proprietary AI models, EDEN™ & RAVEN™, to design a next-generation vaccine candidate that elicits cellular and humoral/antibody responses. The antigen constructs derived from Evaxion’s AI Immunology™ platform will be produced by ExpreS2ion in the company’s ExpreS2 platform, followed by assessments in Evaxion’s state-of-the-art preclinical models. The joint discovery project is included in Evaxion’s development pipeline under EVX-V1.

In October 2021, Evaxion entered into a clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with subsidiaries of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada) to evaluate the combination of Evaxion’s cancer immunotherapy EVX-01 with MSD’s anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab) in a new Phase 2b study. Under the terms of the agreement, Evaxion is responsible for conducting the study, and MSD supplies all of the necessary KEYTRUDA® and will continue to collaborate as the data matures.