Pharma prepares to fight global monkeypox outbreak

Monkeypox appears to be spreading across Europe, Australia and the US, prompting the pharma and biotech sectors to start preparing to tackle this new viral outbreak. 

Emergent Biosolutions and Bavarian Nordic A/S are among the first organizations to sign deals to make treatments for the virus widely available.

Monkeypox, a zoonotic disease, is found mainly in tropical rainforest areas of Central and West Africa and is endemic in certain parts of the region.  First discovered in 1958, despite previous reports of cases outside of Africa, this is the first time a multinational outbreak of monkeypox has occurred.

Cases have been reported in at least 14 countries to date, with experts raising the alarm as the majority do not have established travel links to areas where monkeypox is endemic.

A relative of smallpox

Some professionals are comparing the outbreak to the Covid-19 pandemic, however scientists say that the key difference is that this time there is an effective treatment for monkeypox because of the disease's similarities to smallpox. 

While the two are clinically similar, monkeypox is less contagious and causes less severe illness. Typical symptoms include fever, rash and swollen lymph nodes, which can last between two and four weeks. Its mortality rate is somewhere between three and six percent.

Transmission from person to person occurs through very close contact, such as through skin lesions, body fluids and sharing contaminated materials like bedding. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cases have mainly (but not exclusively) been identified in men who have sex with men.

Effective antivirals

Emergent Biosolutions, a biopharma company that specializes in public health and biodefense, has acquired the rights to Tembexa, the smallpox antiviral treatment developed by drug manufacturers Chimerix.  

Tembexa is administered orally and was approved in June 2021 for the treatment of human smallpox disease in both adults and children. As a result of the licensing deal, the value of Emergent’s stock has seen a rise of 10 percent.

Separately, a US pharmaceutical company is reportedly in talks with European authorities to stockpile tecovirimat, an antiviral developed by SIGA Technologies to treat smallpox and related viruses such as monkeypox.

Additionally Bavarian Nordic A/S, headquartered in Denmark, has secured a contract with an undisclosed European country to supply its Imvanex vaccine in response to the outbreak.

The vaccine is approved in Europe as Imvanex for smallpox indication, but has previously been provided for off-label use for monkeypox cases. In the US it is approved as Jynneos and in Canada as Imvamune, both places with the approval extended to cover the monkeypox indication.

Preventing an epidemic

Paul Chaplin, President and CEO of Bavarian Nordic said: “While the full circumstances around the current monkeypox cases in Europe remain to be elucidated, the speed of which these have evolved, combined with the potential for infections beyond the initial case going undetected, calls for a rapid and coordinated approach by the health authorities, and we are pleased to assist in this emergency situation.

“Infection control has been a high priority for societies during COVID-19, and this situation is an unfortunate reminder that we cannot let our guard down, but must continue to build and strengthen our infectious disease preparedness to keep the world open.”

The WHO has reported more than 100 laboratory confirmed cases, with further suspected cases pending confirmation. The agency has stated that scientists are currently sequencing the virus from different cases to see if they are linked.

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