Henderson Morley to refocus as a pure-play vaccines business

UK based antiviral drugs and vaccines business Henderson Morley is to restructure itself as a "pure play" vaccine company.

Historically, the company has worked in three therapeutic areas: Ionic Contra Viral Therapy (ICVT - a clinical stage antiviral platform technology), animal healthcare products and vaccine technology (novel delivery platforms for antivirals and treatment of specific cancers).

Its business model was to develop its candidates to the point of proof of concept and then licence them to third parties for further development and commercialisation. However, following an extensive strategic review, Henderson Morley aims to divest the human applications of ICVT during the next 12 months, possibly realising up to £2m (Euro 2.3m), and further develop and then divest its animal healthcare products activities within two years raising a further estimated £10m (€11.7m). This will leave the company as a "pure play" vaccine business.

Henderson Morley has been assigned the intellectual property rights to the PREPS and L-particles technologies that have broad potential in the treatment of diseases, including cancer, as well as for the prevention of several important virus infections for which there are no vaccines currently available. The company has successfully engineered and manufactured trial batches of its first PREPS and L-particles vaccine candidates and collaborations are underway with international research organisations, such as the Australian Centre for Vaccine Development (ACVD), to develop the technology further.

Henderson Morley has submitted a grant application to the US National Institute of Health to develop a vaccine for cytomegalovirus (part of the PREPS and L-particles vaccine platform) with the ACVD.

Professor Rajiv Khanna of the ACVD, who is leading the Australian research, said: 'Henderson Morley's technology and the vaccine design expertise of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research constitutes a unique and powerful approach to the development of a vaccine for cytomegalovirus. The Poly-L particle approach is unparalleled in the US.'

'The HM/QIMR approach circumvents the confounding factors that have prevented a functional vaccine in the past. The impact of a successful vaccine would be the prevention of thousands of CMV infections in newborn and immunocompromised patients, and could save millions of dollars in hospitalisation costs for the treatment of this deadly and evasive pathogen.'