Vical, a San Diego biotech company, said today it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to license its pandemic flu vaccine candidates in Japan to AnGes. Osaka, Japan-based AnGes will conduct due diligence on the program, and the companies plan to negotiate terms of a license, Vical said. The news is an “incremental positive” for Vical (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VICL]]), because it validates the company’s flu vaccine candidate, says Thomas Shrader, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw in New York, in a note to clients today. Vical’s H5N1 vaccine has advantages over competitors in effectiveness, cross-protection, and rapid production, he says.
Author: Luke Timmerman
Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.
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