Mpox: Danish lab hits the jackpot with vaccine exclusivity

AFP/Archives – JULIEN DE ROSA

A new vaccine race has been launched since the WHO declared a health emergency regarding Mpox (monkeypox), and the Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic is the winner. Producer of the only vaccine authorized in Europe, its share price has soared: the company's share price increased by 1.65% on August 25 alone. The questions of efficacy, relevance and possible dangers remain, not to mention supply difficulties.

A sense of déjà vu, let's say. The WHO's announcements are stirring up fears and the epidemic is confronting laboratories and customers with supply difficulties, allowing the stock market value of the company behind the treatment to increase. A week before the WHO announced the “public health emergency of international concern” surrounding the epidemic, according to information from Temps, the institution reportedly asked vaccine manufacturers on August 9 to come forward if they wanted their product to be evaluated.

Once again, it's urgent. It was therefore necessary to select candidates capable of proposing vaccines after the reporting without this being harmful to public health.

As a result, the only vaccine that ends up being approved by the regulatory authorities of the United States and the European Union is the one presented by the biotech Bavarian Nordic. We will meet the treatment under the name of “Imvanex” in Europe, while it will be “Jynneos” for the United States.

Enough to restore the tarnished reputation of the Danish laboratory. Although the company presents declining results for the first half of the year, it is assured that this will correct itself for the rest of the year. According to information from Échos, the company's share price has jumped 46% over the past month. Going further, the media even announces that an order has been placed by a country whose identity has not been revealed for 440,000 units of smallpox and Mpox vaccines. A contract worth 180 million euros on its own.

Since the beginning of the year in Africa, 19,000 cases of Mpox have been suspected or confirmed according to the African Union health agency. With Covid having left after-effects, countries are rushing to get vaccine doses so as not to miss out on this new rare commodity. However, France wants to be rather calm for the moment. Indeed, an infectious disease specialist from the Montpellier University Hospital testified to France 3 by stating: “I regret that there is concern in the general population, because no one needs to worry in this post-Covid pandemic period. We must try to keep our heads on our shoulders and not panic.” Especially since the profiles of those affected are said to be very specific. The coordinating physician of the Free Information, Screening and Diagnostic Center (CeGIDD) in Montpellier, states that these would be “men who have sexual relations with men and who have multiple partners, people who return from the Congo region and who could have been put in contact with infected people, or someone in France who would have been in contact with a person who had smallpox.”

Furthermore, apart from the fact that it makes money, we currently have relatively little information concerning the vaccine, its effectiveness or its side effects. That being said, since the disease is not new, there should be no cause for concern on either side.

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