The only monkeypox vaccine was created out of fear of bioterrorism

• infectious Vaccines against monkeypox, complications in the traceability of cases means that little more than 10% of the first 200 doses have been used
• European Union Spain, first EU country to receive vaccines against monkeypox

At the Bavarian Nordic headquarters in Port Tuborg, north of Copenhagen, they watch with undisguised satisfaction as orders pile up and their share price soars (and more so now that the WHO has activated its highest level of alert for the current outbreak). The Danish biotechnology company is the only one in the world that has an approved vaccine against monkeypoxwhich explains the interest in a product that was born, above all, due to the 2001 attack in the US against the Pentagon and the Twin Towers.

“After the 9/11 attacks, fears of biological terrorism grew. In addition, there was information that the smallpox virus, live and active, had escaped from Russian laboratories”explains Asger Aamund, the company’s founder. “That is why they wanted to develop a smallpox vaccine that would work for the whole world. The first thing the United States did was buy large quantities of the old vaccine, but what they really wanted was a new one that did not have side effects so that the people with compromised immune systems due to cancer or HIV, for example, could also be vaccinated.”

Aamund, 82, is one of Denmark’s best-known businessmen. Mainly due to his professional successes and his active participation in political debate, where he has stood out for defending greater economic liberalism, but also for being the brother of the prestigious writer Jane Aamund and for being married to the model and presenter Suzanne Bjerrehuus.

He founded Bavarian Nordic in 1994. At that time he only had three employees. Today it has almost 500. The company has specialized in vaccines against cancer and infectious diseases, such as smallpox -where it is the market leader-, Ebola and HPV. It is also a leader in the market for vaccines against rabies and tick-borne encephalitis, whose rights it acquired in 2019 from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.

At the moment, the monkeypox vaccine is only approved as such in the US and Canada., where it is marketed under the name Jynneos. In Europe, marketed as Imvanexis only registered as a smallpox vaccine, without further specification, although the status is expected to be expanded in the coming weeks.

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From the old vaccine to the new

In addition to Aamund, its promoters were the former director general of Bavarian Nordic, Peter Wulff, and the German military doctor Anton Mayr, who was the one who initiated the experiments with the so-called MVA, an acronym for Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara. Early evidence indicated that half a thousand tests on chicken embryos had largely eliminated the disease-causing properties of the original viral strain. This indicated that, Unlike the old vaccine, the new one had no side effects and, moreover, could also be used as a vector vaccine (Vaccines that use a harmless virus as a vehicle to carry genetic information about another virus into the body.)

“We got a partnership with the US whereby they funded the development of MVA into a modern smallpox vaccine,” recalls Aamund. “And we got it. We passed the mandatory phase 1, 2 and 3 tests with good results. At the same time, we could see that there might be regional problems with monkeypox, so we made sure that monkeypox was also included in our registration request. So that the monkeypox indication was also part of the approval“.

Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 after causing the worst deadly epidemics since the plague. It is estimated that, in its last 100 years of existence, it killed 500 million people.. Monkeypox, however, is considered less dangerous, since it does not usually cause such serious consequences and is easier to contain than, for example, Covid-19.

For now, the European outbreak has meant that two EU countries have already purchased batches of the Bavarian Nordic vaccine. Although the company has not wanted to identify them, the German health authorities themselves have reported that they have bought 40,000 doses, while the British have bought 20,000.

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According to Bavarian Nordic, more operations are being prepared, so it has revised its sales forecast for 2022 upwards by 100 million kroons (13.4 million euros), with which it expects total sales of up to 1.5 billion kroons. (201.5 million euros).

“Now we have to wait and see what happens, because no one knows how the virus will evolve. There are signs that he is experiencing a second youth. She has entered an environment where she thrives very well, but it may also be extinct in a few months,” explains Aamund.

“There are many countries, in addition to the US, that now want to stockpile vaccines,” he adds. “But the problem is that no one wants to invest in them unless faced with an acute threat. That’s why there’s always a big risk of being caught with our pants down.”