Novavax has inked another settlement for a past COVID-19 vaccine supply deal.
The Maryland biotech has agreed to pay $123.8 million to end a COVID vaccine supply pact with the UK Health Security Agency, the company said in a securities filing Wednesday.
Novavax will pay the full amount in quarterly installments of $10.3 million over three years starting Nov. 30 and lasting until mid-2027. The payment amount includes a $11.3 million calculation for interest, which could be avoided if Novavax pays early.
The settlement cuts any remaining ties between Novavax and the U.K. government under their supply agreement.
The two parties initially entered into a COVID vaccine supply deal in October 2020. The U.K. originally agreed to purchase 60 million doses of the company’s protein-based adjuvanted shot NVX-CoV2373, which later became Nuvaxovid as it was authorized by the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in 2022.
The deal was revised later that year, with the U.K. government agreeing to purchase a minimum of 1 million doses and up to an additional 15 million doses. The problem stemmed from those conditional doses.
Because the U.K.’s immunization committee didn’t recommend the shot in the following year or so, the number of conditional doses was first reduced by half to 7.5 million and then to zero in November 2023. The prototype vaccine got full marketing authorization from the MHRA in October 2023, and an updated version covering the XBB.1.5 variant won the U.K.’s go-ahead in January.
As related to the first reduction, Novavax repaid the U.K. $112.5 million last year and was talking with the authority about the rest of $112.5 million as part of the country’s previous upfront payment.
Now, the U.K. still won’t take any of those conditional doses but is at least allowing Novavax to pay back the money over time.
In April, Novavax said its updated XBB.1.5 shot was made available in U.K. pharmacies for private market purchase.
Novavax struggled last year to the point where its ability to stay operational was put into question. Things turned better for the biotech this year after Sanofi shelled out $500 million up front to partner on Nuvaxovid.
In other vaccine supply settlements Novavax has reached, the company earlier this year agreed to pay back Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, up to $400 million through the end of 2028 around its prototype shot. That dispute had even escalated to the International Court of Arbitration with Gavi demanding its money back for unpurchased doses of NVX-CoV2373.
In a win for Novavax, Canada last year agreed to pay $349.6 million to compensate the company for unused COVID doses that the country had canceled.
As for the U.S., the FDA in August authorized Novavax’s updated vaccine that corresponds to the Omicron variant JN.1 strain for the 2024-25 season.
Elsewhere, Novavax’s pipeline took a hit in October as the FDA put the company’s COVID-flu combo and standalone flu clinical programs on hold after a report of a motor neuropathy case from a trial participant who had received the investigational COVID-flu shot.