Bavarian Nordic to buy travel vaccine portfolio for up to $380 million

(Reuters) -Danish pharmaceuticals company Bavarian Nordic has agreed to buy a portfolio of travel vaccines from Emergent BioSolutions Inc for up to $380 million, it said on Wednesday after delivering an upbeat outlook for 2023.

The company said it would acquire a typhoid fever vaccine, one against cholera and a Chikungunya virus treatment that is in Phase III trials.

There are no approved vaccines against Chikungunya as yet, the company said, adding that analysts peg potential annual income from the vaccine at $500 million.

"Travel vaccines are seeing a rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic," the company said.

Bavarian Nordics makes the only approved mpox vaccine and started receiving massive orders last year as the virus became a global issue.

The company expects 2023 revenue of about 6 billion Danish crowns ($863 million) against the 3.15 billion crowns in preliminary 2022 results, with 4.4 billion crowns coming from mpox and smallpox vaccined contracts alone.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) are expected to reach 2.2 billion crowns this year, up from 329 million crowns in the preliminary results for 2022.

The guidance excludes any impact from the acquisitions, it added.

($1 = 6.9526 Danish crowns)

(Reporting by Boleslaw Lasocki in GdanskEditing by David Goodman)