Dutch Crucell makes terms with Sanofi Pasteur over rabies antibodies

By Margarita Snegireva. Dutch biotechnology firm Crucell said on Thursday it had entered a collaboration and commercialisation agreement with Sanofi Pasteur for Crucell's rabies monoclonal antibodies.

Photo: Dutch Crucell makes terms with Sanofi Pasteur over rabies antibodies

"Crucell will receive a payment of 10 million euros ($14.7 million) following the execution of the agreement and would be eligible for milestone payments of up to 66.5 million euros," Crucell said in a statement.

Crucell originally started in 1993 as a small company called IntroGene. IntroGene was founded by Prof. Dinko Valerio, Dr. Dick van Bekkum and Dr. Bob Lowenberg to focus on gene therapy. The company then developed in 1995 the PER.C6® human cell line for the expression of biologics, initially for virus-based products. During the next five years the applications of the PER.C6® technology were expanded, before the acquisition in 2000 of MAbstract® technology company U-Bisys to form Crucell.

In early 2006, Crucell and Swiss Berna Biotech joined forces to become the sixth largest vaccine company worldwide. Later in the year, Crucell further strengthened its presence in the vaccine industry through the acquisitions of US-based Berna Products and Sweden’s SBL Vaccin AB.