Drug company to produce millions of Mpox vaccines by next year

Shares of mpox vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic saw an increase this week after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency and as the company’s CEO announced it could provide 10 million doses of the vaccine.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) previously said it needed 10 million doses to deal with an mpox, also known as monkeypox, outbreak that has spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to other African nations. WHO and other health officials say that the strain of mpox appears to be more deadly than another variant that caused a worldwide outbreak in 2022 and 2023.

In the interview, Chaplin said his firm has 300,000 doses of the vaccine ready to be distributed right away, while adding that 2 million doses could be provided to Africa by the end of 2024. “We are in late August already, so it really does need some speed in the decision making to be able to do that,” he said.

Over the past five days, his company’s stock has increased by about 49 percent, raising to about $14.11 per share as of Friday afternoon.

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“Children and adolescents are disproportionally affected by mpox in the ongoing outbreak in Africa, highlighting the importance and urgency to broaden the access to vaccines and therapies for this vulnerable population,” Chaplin said in a statement.

Emergent BioSolutions, a U.S.-based company that acquired a smallpox vaccine manufacturer from Sanofi in 2017, also saw its stock increase 54 percent over the past five days, raising to about $10.64 per share.

In the current mpox outbreak, have been 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths, mainly among children, in Congo since it started in January 2023.

Emergency Declaration

The WHO declared the recent outbreak of the disease a “public health emergency of international concern,” or the agency’s highest form of alert. It is announced when diseases are spreading in new or unusual ways, and is aimed at galvanizing international co-operation and funding to tackle an outbreak.

A similar declaration was made for the mpox outbreak in 2022 and 2023, for COVID-19 in 2020, and for about a half-dozen other pathogens since 2005.

The WHO’s declaration follows a similar label from the Africa CDC earlier this week. Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent a health alert earlier in August for doctors and physicians to be alert for mpox symptoms.

No cases of mpox have been detected in the United States so far, according to the CDC notice. However, Sweden confirmed its first case of the more severe mpox strain—the first time it’s been found outside of Africa—earlier this week.

“We have now also during the afternoon had confirmation that we have one case in Sweden of the more grave type of mpox, the one called clade I,” Health and Social Affairs Minister Jakob Forssmed said during a news conference.

Mpox is a viral infection that causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and while usually mild, it can kill. Children, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, are all at higher risk of complications.

It spreads through close contact and is classified into two distinct viral groups known as clades. They are Clade I, which includes a variant that has the more severe form of the virus, and Clade II, a variant of which caused the 2022 outbreak.

Reuters contributed to this report.