NewLink Will License Ebola Vaccine to Merck

Reston – December 9, 2014 – Cooley advised NewLink Genetics Corporation on a collaboration and license transaction with Merck & Co. to research, develop, manufacture and commercialize NewLink's Ebola vaccine candidate and possibly to develop future Ebola vaccines.

Under the transaction, NewLink will receive a $30 million upfront payment, $20 million when phase III trials begin and royalties from sales of the vaccine in certain markets. In August 2014, NewLink received a $1 million contract with the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency to help fund Ebola vaccine research.

The vaccine candidate is currently being tested on healthy participants in phase I trials. Pending the results, phase III trials are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2015 on infected individuals.

In October of this year, Cooley advised NewLink in its negotiations with Genentech that resulted in an exclusive worldwide collaboration agreement, valued at $1 billion, for the development of NLG919, NewLink's cancer immunotherapy.

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