iBio grants commercial, royalty-bearing license to Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos for new yellow fever vaccine

iBio, Inc. (NYSE AMEX:IBIO) today announced the grant of a commercial, royalty-bearing license to Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos of Brazil to develop, manufacture and sell certain vaccines based upon iBio's proprietary technology. Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos will invest more than $6 million to bring the first product - a new yellow fever vaccine - through Phase I clinical trials. Product development will be performed through a commercial collaboration among iBio, Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos, and iBio's research and development collaborator, the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology (FCMB).

“Current vaccines for yellow fever are produced in chicken eggs from a live, attenuated strain of the yellow fever virus”

The license covers the nations of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. iBio retains the right to sell the products developed under the license and collaboration agreement in any other territory with a royalty back to Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos.

Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos is a leading world manufacturer of yellow fever vaccine which it has exported to 70 countries.

"We believe this collaboration among iBio, Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos and FCMB will dramatically improve the way vaccines and other biopharmaceuticals are developed and manufactured in Brazil and supplied to the other nations in and beyond the licensed territory," said Robert B. Kay, iBio's Chairman and CEO. "This should help put Brazil in the forefront of state-of-the-art biologics production and distribution."

"We believe iBio's technology and FCMB's experience and skills in the field, combined with our own capabilities and relationships, can make Brazil a leader in high technologies and advanced manufacturing processes for biopharmaceuticals," said Artur Roberto Couto, Director of Fiocruz/Bio-Manguinhos.

"Current vaccines for yellow fever are produced in chicken eggs from a live, attenuated strain of the yellow fever virus," said Dr. Vidadi Yusibov, Chief Scientific Officer of iBio and Executive Director of FCMB. "We are confident our technology for producing vaccines will significantly help to protect a broader audience against this serious disease."