(News Bulletin 247) – The Valneva laboratory announces a new contract for Ixiaro, its vaccine against Japanese encephalitis. It has been used by the American army since 2010 to protect its soldiers stationed in Southeast Asia.

The American army is renewing its confidence in Valneva, a little over a year after giving up on placing a new order for Ixiaro, a vaccine against Japanese encephalitis.

The laboratory specializing in the development of vaccines announced this Monday morning the signing of a new contract for this vaccine, the only one approved to fight against a very common viral disease in Southeast Asia, Japanese encephalitis, for the armed forces. Americans stationed in this region.

Under this new one-year contract, the US Department of Defense will purchase Ixiaro vaccines for a minimum amount of $32 million. The US military reserves the option of purchasing additional doses over the next twelve months. “Deliveries will begin immediately,” says Valneva.

This announcement is appreciated by the market, since the stock climbs another 3.4% around 10:00 a.m., after a peak of more than 6.5% at the start of the session.

A long-term relationship

The US military has used the Ixiaro vaccine since 2010 to protect service members stationed in Southeast Asia (and where applicable their family members).

It is the only vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect people traveling to or living in areas with Japanese encephalitis, a disease that is caused by Culex mosquito bites. Encephalitis causes inflammation of the brain, which can cause coma, paralysis and death. At least 70,000 cases are recorded per year, leading to death in around 30% of people and causing irreversible brain damage in half of survivors.

Originally, Ixiaro (called Jespect in Australia and New Zealand) was developed in collaboration with a research center of the American army, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Resumption of support travel

This product is part of the portfolio of vaccines sold by Valneva, in addition to Dukoral targeting cholera. And with the resumption of travel, the sale of these vaccines against these two infectious diseases allowed Valneva to more than double its product sales to 69.7 million euros between January and June 2023.

This dynamic observed in sales of vaccines for travelers made it possible to bring total turnover to 73.7 million euros in the first half of 2023 and also to reduce the half-year loss to 35 million euros, compared to a loss from 171.5 million euros a year earlier.

The laboratory is currently developing several vaccine candidates including VLA15, against Lyme disease, in partnership with Pfizer and VLA1553, its vaccine candidate against chikungunya, which is the subject of review by several health authorities including Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States and whose verdict is expected at the end of November.