Earnings call transcript: Bavarian Nordic Q4 2024 sees robust growth

Bavarian Nordic reported a strong financial performance in Q4 2024, with significant revenue growth and a solid EBITDA margin. The company’s stock price rose by 2.32% following the earnings announcement, reflecting positive investor sentiment. Currently trading at $23.21, InvestingPro analysis suggests the stock is undervalued, with a P/E ratio of 11.69x and strong financial health metrics. The firm highlighted its leadership in the travel vaccine market and outlined promising future prospects with new product launches.

Key Takeaways

• Bavarian Nordic’s revenue reached DKK 5.7 billion with a 28% EBITDA margin.
• The company launched the Jynneos vaccine in the U.S. private market.
• Stock price increased by 2.32% post-earnings announcement.
• Chikungunya vaccine approved in both the U.S. and EU.
• Revenue guidance for 2025 set between DKK 5.7-6.7 billion.

Company Performance

Bavarian Nordic demonstrated strong performance in Q4 2024, capitalizing on its leadership in the travel vaccine segment and public health emergency response. The company reported a 28% EBITDA margin, underscoring its efficient operations and strategic market positioning. The launch of the Jynneos vaccine in the U.S. and the approval of the chikungunya vaccine in key markets bolster its competitive edge.

Financial Highlights

• Total revenue: DKK 5.7 billion
• Gross profit: DKK 2.8 billion (49% gross margin)
• EBITDA: DKK 1.6 billion (28% EBITDA margin)
• R&D spend: DKK 863 million
• Cash position: Nearly DKK 2.2 billion

Outlook & Guidance

Bavarian Nordic has set ambitious revenue guidance for 2025, ranging from DKK 5.7 to 6.7 billion. The company projects an EBITDA margin between 26% and 30%. The travel health segment is expected to contribute DKK 2.5 billion, while the chikungunya vaccine is anticipated to generate DKK 50-100 million in revenue.

Executive Commentary

CEO Paul Chaplin expressed confidence in the company’s growth trajectory, stating, "We’re reporting very strong numbers. It’s the fifth year in a row now we’ve reported strong profitable growth." CFO Henrik Gull noted, "We are anticipating the first quarter to be somewhat light, both in terms of revenue and EBITDA," highlighting a cautious start to the year.

Risks and Challenges

• Regulatory uncertainties surrounding the chikungunya vaccine launch.
• Potential supply chain disruptions affecting vaccine production.
• Competitive pressures in the travel vaccine market.
• Economic fluctuations impacting public health budgets.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the regulatory timeline for the chikungunya vaccine and potential U.S. manufacturing requirements. The company emphasized its readiness for the vaccine’s launch and its strategic manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. to mitigate regulatory impacts.

Full transcript - Bavarian Nordic (BAVA) Q4 2024:

Conference Operator: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bavarian Nordic twenty twenty four Annual Report Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer To ask a question during the session, you will need to press 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.

To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ralph Sorensen, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Rolf Sorenson, Head of Investor Relations, Bavarian Nordic: Yes. Thank you, operator. Welcome everyone to this full year update from Verenaudik. My name is Rolf Sorenson. And today in this conference call, we have, as usual, Paul Chaplin, CEO and Henrik Gull, CFO, to give the presentation and comments to the Q and A session that comes afterwards, as usual.

Before we start the presentation, please note that this announcement includes forward looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside our control and could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed. Forward looking statements include statements concerning our plans, objectives, goals, future events, performance and other information that is not historical information. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise forward looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances after the date made, except as required by law. And with this, I will hand it over to you, Paul, to start the presentation for

Paul Chaplin, CEO, Bavarian Nordic: the full year. Thanks, Rolf, and welcome, everyone, to our annual accounts for 2024. If you go to Slide three, so this is obviously we had a very, very successful 2024 year. We’re reporting very strong numbers. It’s the fifth year in a row now we’ve reported strong profitable growth.

So you can all see the figures on this slide, five point just over DKK 5,700,000,000.0 in revenue, a 28% EBITDA margin, which equates to DKK 1,600,000,000.0. So very strong year based on strong growth of our travel health vaccine franchise, which grew by 22% compared to the previous year. We’re also seeing in public preparedness strong growth due to the current public health crisis on mPOXX, where we’ve been able to secure contracts for more than 3,000,000 doses, which also will spill over into ’25. On the street, on the strategic elements for 2024, we’ve been performing very strongly. The tech transfer for the assets that we purchased back in 2020 for rabies and TBE is on track, really, which is impressive and really setting some industry new standards in terms of timelines for complicated tech transfer of vaccines.

For ’25, I will leave Henrik Jule, CFO, to talk a little bit more about the guidance, but we’re coming out again with a strong financial guidance with a range of $5,700,000,000 to $6,700,000,000 dollars We already have secured contracts, which I’ll talk to in the coming slides. And again, we’re standing by our EBITDA margin projections of 26% to 30%. So again, another strong and exciting year ahead. If we turn to the next slide, Slide four. So just over a year ago, we had a Capital Markets Day presentation where we tried to inform the market of wherever Veronautics was heading and to lay out a roadmap in terms of the company’s strategy in terms of growth and innovation.

And on this slide, we’re just running through some of those promises or projections that we made. In terms of travel health, we said the average growth of the travel health business would be 10% to 12% between 23%, twenty seven %. We reported 22% growth last year and that was on the back of double digit growth the year before. So we’re above our expectations for the growth that we see for that business. The tech transfer, as I already said, for rabies and TBE is on track.

Rabies is complete and TBE will be completed this year. So again, on track also on track to see the improvement in the gross margin for those two products once those tech transfers are complete. Plus, once we’ve removed all the GSK inventory, so this gross margin improvement of 15% to 20% should really start to be seen in 26% and the full effect will be seen in 27%. So we will remain on track for those improvements in the gross margin. In terms of public prepared, we said our base business will be SEK 1,500,000,000.0 to SEK 2,000,000,000 with some spikes.

Those spikes could be due to outbreaks or larger one off orders from different governments. Clearly, the last two years, we’ve been reporting revenues much higher than the base business, and we’re guiding this year ’25 for higher revenues. This is in part due to two outbreaks of Enterpox and a public health emergency, but it is actually also in part due to the growing number of customer a growing customer base for public preparedness. And as I’ve said in the past, we may, as we come through ’25, have to revisit what that base business truly is, whether it’s higher than the $1,500,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 we projected last year. But we certainly remain on track.

In terms of public preparedness, we also talked about launching Jynneos in The U. S, which was successfully performed last year, and we’ve already reported strong revenues for the first launch year of DKK 178,000,000. On pipeline, we said we would come forward with new pipeline assets and today we’re announcing two new pipeline assets, which I’ll talk about in the coming slides. But we also said on Chikungunya, which was an asset that we acquired from Emergent BioSolutions that we would forge ahead with the submissions and approvals of that vaccine. And you will probably all have seen that vaccine is now approved in The U.

S. And The EU, and we are gearing up to launch that vaccine in those two territories later this year. So again, all on track or already completed. In terms of the financials, we upgraded our guidance last year and delivered, as I’ve just reported, within the range. On EBITDA, we’ve made promises to maintain a 25% to 30% margin.

And last year, we reported 28%. This year, we’re guiding between 2630%, so again, living up to the projections that we set ourselves last year. So really a very, very strong performance. We set out some ambitious goals and some ambitious targets just a year ago. Many of those are on track to be completed or have already been completed.

So really strong performance by the company in 2024. So if you go to Slide five, a little bit more about the Treble Health. So we saw a 22% growth in 2024 compared to 2023, and that primarily was driven by sales of our rabies and TBE. So rabies, we saw grow by 16%. We maintained or grew our market share in The U.

S. And Germany, the two key markets. And as I said, we completed the tec transfer on time, on budget within four years. Rabies is one of the most complicated live vaccines to actually manufacture, and we’re incredibly proud of the fact that we were actually able to complete that Tetra transfer on time and on budget. Regarding TVE, we also saw a strong performance mainly by sales in Europe of 19% increase from the previous year.

We saw that we maintained and slightly grew our market share in Germany, and the tech transfer remains fully on track to be completed later this year. In terms of the two new assets, Vatskora and Devatif for cholera and typhoid, respectively, we’re in a relaunch of these assets as these were assets that were removed from the market for protracted time during COVID. We are seeing recovery of these two assets. And one of the things that we’ve realized, particularly regarding the typhoid markets, is we have not seen the strong rebound since COVID for typhoid. And in part, that’s because we and the competitor isn’t really addressing one segment of the market, which were prescribers.

So the VAVA TYP was being prescribed previously before COVID, and we haven’t been able to address that segment. So this year, we’ll be focusing on increasing telesales, but also a contracted sales force that hopefully will address that new segment in the typhoid market. If you go to the next slide, public preparedness again was really dominated by yet another outbreak of mPox, this time primarily in Africa, and we are faced with a new public health emergency. Once again, I’m incredibly proud of Bavonautics’ efforts in this space. Within a very short period of time of the public health emergency being declared, we were able to ship and deliver the initial doses of MVA BN to Africa.

And our vaccine is now being distributed in a number of African countries either under an emergency use authorization or the WHO pre qualification. We also, as I said, launched Jynneos in the private market in The U. S, which is a brand new opportunity on the back of the outbreak in 2022. And it really is a new opportunity to to the access of our vaccine, which is the preferred option in the private space for people at risk of mPox. Later this year, we expect the approval from the FDA of our freeze dried version, which is a development that was funded by the U.

S. Government and is nearing completion. As I said, the submission was made a year ago. We do expect it to be actually to date this month. And that though will fulfill or allow us to hopefully secure more orders with the U.

S. Government for the freeze dried version on top of the existing contract we’ve had for a number of years. If you go to the next slide, we actually saw strong regulatory progress for our mPox vaccine last year due to the new outbreak of mPox. So the indication for MVA BN was extended to include adolescents based on data from an NIH sponsored study. We also expanded the approvals in new territories such as Singapore, New Zealand and Mexico on top of the areas where it was already approved.

I already mentioned we were the first mCoV vaccine to receive a WHO pre qualification, which has certainly supported the use of MVA BN in Africa, either through the WHO pre qualification or through emergency use authorizations. And on top of that, we’ve secured funding in collaboration with CEPI for a number of different studies. One is a pediatric study that is rapidly ongoing right now in Africa, which is in children between two and 12. This hopefully will expand the label in the coming years to include children. Having said that, under the EUA that have EUA that have been issued in Africa, children are already being vaccinated with that product.

Other studies that will hopefully expand the indication are also in pregnant and breastfeeding women, which are studies that will be initiated later this year. So really strong progress is a testimony to the fact that there is great interest from agencies around the globe and academic institutions to really investigate MVA in new populations, which will only benefit the public health should there be a new or continued outbreak of mPOS. So if we move to the next slide, Slide eight. On chikungunya, we’ve really seen a fast moving development. We were able to file both in The EU and The U.

S. In parallel last year. We received accelerated reviews in both territories and both and the vaccine was approved almost on the record both in The U. S. And The EU.

And in The U. S, that also came with a proxy review voucher, which we have the full intention of selling when the time is right. So we’ve now been approved in the major territories. We are gearing up to in the first half of this year, and we will continue to follow new territories such as The UK and other territories in the coming months and years ahead. So we are very confident that we have a differentiated vaccine.

We have a vaccine that is far factored. We have a vaccine that is not contraindicated for immune compromised and available for adolescents. So we really believe we have a differentiated vaccine and we aim to take this number one brand as quickly as possible. If we go to the next slide, Slide nine. So on our pipeline, we obviously have our chikungunya vaccine, where we despite the approval in the launch late this year, we still have commitments to the regulators to test the vaccine in new populations.

So we have a pediatric study that is planned to be initiated later this year. We also have efficacy study to be conducted if and when there is a new outbreak of chikungunya. So there are still R and D elements of our chikungunya vaccine to complete. However, today, we’re also announcing the initiation of two new programs, a vaccine candidate for Lyme and also a vaccine candidate for Epstein Barr virus, both of which we have been working on for a number of years in our R and D facilities. And we’ve got to the point now where we’re ready to move into the clinic.

And this year, we’ll be spending our efforts, getting the regulatory approvals and the manufacturing in place to initiate clinical studies in 2026. If we go to the next slide, let’s talk a little bit about these two new targets. So when we were looking for new clinical targets, we were looking for unmet medical needs, so diseases that were not currently being addressed by vaccines, and both fit into that category. We were also looking for candidates where we believed we had the tools and the strong advantage now to address that unmet medical need, and again, both fit into that category. And thirdly, we were looking for indications at a proven mode of action, meaning that it was known what the vaccine needed to do, what levels of antibodies are required.

And for Lyme, that is the case. And if it wasn’t a proven mode of action, we were also looking for early signals of proof of concept, either efficacy or meeting a predefined immune level, and both fit into that category. So in terms of Lyme, Lyme is a disease that is spread by ticks, so very complementary to ENSOpport, tick borne encephalitis vaccine. It’s a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks. There’s a high disease burden that is growing as the infected ticks are spreading to more regions around the world.

So there’s a huge medical need as there’s currently no vaccine available. The good news is, as I said, there was a previous Lyme vaccine that was approved and manufactured by GSK. So we understand the mode of action of that vaccine. And that’s the mode of action that we’ll be following and it will allow an early readout whether we are meeting the criteria to be efficacious and whether we have areas where we are differentiated from other companies developing a Lyme vaccine. So while we’re in the early phases and the lower investment phases of development, we will be able to have an understanding whether we have an efficacious vaccine and whether we have a differentiated vaccine from the competition that are also in development.

If you go to the next slide, Epstein Barr virus is a little different. Epstein Barr virus is a virus that we will all have been exposed to by the age of 30. Early in life, an EBV infection causes like a flu like infection with high fever. But later on in life as an adolescent or a young adult, it can actually cause what is known as infectious mononucleosis, also referred to as glandular fever, also referred to as the kissing disease because that’s the main form of transmission. And while this is a rather nasty infection, it can really cause high fever and fatigue for prolonged periods of time.

Infectious mononucleosis has also been associated with the development of multiple sclerosis later on in life and also is associated with formation of certain cancers in late life. So there’s a huge unmet medical need. A vaccine that could prevent infectious mononucleosis or glandular fever could have widespread health benefits. Currently, there is no vaccine available. So as I said, it’s really an unmet medical need.

Now other that there was a vaccine candidate for Epstein Barr virus that has been published based on one of the surface proteins of EBV that showed to be that was shown to be efficacious in students, university students. So again, there is a path here where after showing safety, we could, while still in the early phases and the lower investment phases of development, have a proof of concept showing that our vaccine candidate is efficacious and potentially is differentiated from other EBV vaccine currently in development. So we’re very excited about the new candidates. We’ve been working on them for a number of years and we really cannot wait to get these candidates into the clinic and see whether these new platform technologies that we’ve developed are as good as they appear in preclinical studies. So with that, I will hand over the presentation to Henrik Yul.

Henrik Gull, CFO, Bavarian Nordic: Yes. Thank you very much, Paul. So let’s turn to the commercial and financial performance. So we are now on Slide 12. So this morning, we announced our final unaudited financial numbers for 2024.

And we hereby, we also confirmed that these numbers were identical to the preliminary numbers that we announced during the month of February. So no surprise really, but today we can dive into some of the details of the numbers obviously. So total revenue for the year ended at DKK 5,700,000,000.0 driven by a DKK 3,200,000,000.0 revenue from our public preparedness business, which is significantly above the base level that we have talked about previously. And of course, driven by the public health emergency situation that we have on the M pox side in Africa at the moment. But also fueled by our U.

S. Private market launch of Jeneres, which we launched last year. And I think already during the first year, we saw revenue of DKK178 million. On our travel health side of the business, we delivered 22% growth over the previous year and ended with nearly DKK 2,300,000,000.0 with our RAPIDS and TBE products being the high growth products here with 1619% growth, respectively. We with that performance, we also triggered last year a sales milestone to GSK of EUR 25,000,000, which we were quite happy to pay as we reached the levels of revenue that we had really not anticipated in our original GSK.

So very strong performance by our TB and Rapist products. Then we would see Fenvax Cora. These two products we still consider being in a relaunch phase. Paul talked a little to some of the initiatives that we are taking to boost the current revenue levels, including hiring contract sales forces to unlock a potential in some segments of the market that has dried out. Worth mentioning here that WEXCOR, you will see on this table here on Page 12, we saw negative revenue in Q4, which is really due to some returns came back.

This is something that happens typically when you launch products and you distribute products out in the supply chain and the products unfortunately end where there’s too little demand in some corners of the supply chain. So we got some returns in Q4, meaning that we ended up with negative revenue. But still PLN64 million for the full year on Vaxcoran. So significantly above 23,000,000 level and not only explained by the full year inclusion of these two products here. So very nice revenue level 5.7, which is in line with the upgraded guidance that we provided to the market last year.

If we turn to the next slide here, we see the full P and L. We recognized the revenue level of SEK 5,700,000,000.0, gross profit of SEK 2,800,000,000.0, which gives a gross margin of 49%. This probably falls below, you can say, our targeted gross margin level. But it is explained by 2024 being an extremely busy year with ramping up for IMPOC to deal with the current IMPOCS outbreak, working on tick transfers both on rapids and CPE, while also developing the manufacturing process for Vimcunya. So it has been a very busy year in our Global Operations organization.

And unfortunately, we were hit by some write downs on our MVA batches, certain batches not getting released at the end. So we had to write them down. We also had a water damage unfortunately on our manufacturing site in Kvisca at some point. And then of course, the gross margin is also impacted by all the manufacturing activities that went on to prepare us for manufacturing of our chikungunya vaccine, bimconia, but at stages before you can actually capitalize the products onto your inventory level. But still, I think this was 49%.

We still delivered $1,600,000,000 in EBITDA, leading to a healthy EBITDA margin of 28% and in line with our guidance. If we just before we move on, maybe just a word on R and D. We ended up with $863,000,000 in R and D spend. We had originally when we guided, so it would be around $850,000,000 so very close to what we guided. But here, I think we did include one element that was not anticipated when we guided and that is the impact of the closure of our San Diego site, which would lead to approximately SEK 70,000,000 that’s included here.

And of course, I think that optimization of our R and D organization also leads to some future run rate savings that we have previously valued at between DKK50 million and DKK75 million per year. The SG and A costs you can see is above the 23 level and primarily explained by the fact that we have all the impacts from the acquisition from Emergent is included with twelve months in 2024 and only seven point five months back in 2023. And then of course, it’s also impacted by all the pre launch activities that we performed during 2024 to secure a good launch preparedness now that we have the approvals here in 2025. So strong numbers and all in line with the upgraded guidance that we provided in the autumn last year. Turning to the next slides.

Cash flow and balance sheet. Just draw your attention to a couple of the numbers here. You see the cash flow from operating activities close to DKK 2,000,000,000, driven by the positive EBITDA, but also a positive contribution from working capital. When we did the original guidance for 2024, we actually made an assumption that we would have a negative working capital impact of $900,000,000 But due to the performance in 2024, it was particularly high revenue also in 2023. We had a high level of receivables that we cast in during 2024.

So we have actually turned a negative working capital impact into a positive contribution due to the reduction in receivables and an improvement in the liability levels as well, offsetting the impact from inventories increasing in line with plans. Cash flow from investments, so that’s where we spent the money. And that primarily was driven by paying our milestones to GSK and Emergent. During 2024, we paid approximately $1,600,000,000 so taking the deferred consideration considerably down, so that we today, we only have approximately DKK1 billion left to pay to GSK and the merchants. So to the right, you will see our cash position, securities cash and cash equivalents of nearly $2,200,000,000 net cash of around the same level.

And then as I said, we still owe approximately $1,000,000,000 to GSK and to Emergent. The Emergent piece, which is SEK350 million will all be paid here during the first quarter because they are linked to the approvals in U. S. And Europe. And in milestones to GSK, they will be paid in connection with the completion of the tick transfer of Insukor.

And that is SEK $731,000,000 in total milestones outstanding to GSK. On the next slide, Looking a little forward for the remainder of this year. We have, as Paul said, we have guided revenue levels of DKK 5,700,000,000.0 to DKK 6,700,000,000.0 and an EBITDA margin of 26% to 30%. The public preparedness business, we are guiding DKK 3,000,000,000 to DKK 4,000,000,000. So that’s what is creating the interval in the overall revenue guidance.

And $2,500,000,000 of that has already been secured by contracts. So this is the second year that we actually guide with an expectation to our public preparedness business and not only with secured contracts. And this is, of course, in anticipation of more orders to come. There is still a public health emergency situation declared by WHO and by Africa CDC. And there is still an outbreak going on in Africa and a risk that it could spread even further.

So more orders are anticipated to deliver between DKK 3,000,000,000 to DKK 4,000,000,000 in total. Travel health, we anticipate revenue of approximately DKK 2,500,000,000.0. And for our chikungunya vaccine, we have included expected revenue of between DKK 50,000,000 and DKK 100,000,000 in our launch year. We have not included any potential income from the sale of our priority review voucher that we earned in connection with the chikungunya vaccine approval in The U. S.

It will be sold and we are going to sell it as soon as possible, but also at the right price. Other than that, I would just mention here that as we’ve said before, we are anticipating the first quarter to be somewhat light, both in terms of revenue and EBITDA. It is not the high season for our Travel Health business. And it’s also driven by the, you can say, factual timing of the revenue recognition from our public preparedness business. So just to expect that the Q1 will be relatively light.

So I think a great year again ahead of us and with the pipeline with two new exciting assets and a Chikungunya launch and numbers well in line with the promises we made at the Capital Markets Day. Bavaria Nordic. And with that, I will turn over to the operator and open up for question and answers.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Novot from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Michael Novod, Analyst, Nordea: Thank you very much. Michael Novod from Nordea. A couple of questions. First, around sort of potential timing of a new ACIP committee. Can you tell us what you’re hearing?

Because obviously, there’s a lot of noise and a lot of stuff going on in many of The U. S. Agencies, including FDA, including ACIP panels, ad comms, etcetera. So maybe just get an understanding on whether you hear anything around a rescheduling of the ACIP meeting? And then secondly, related to that, the DKK 50,000,000 to DKK 100,000,000 for Chick sales in 2025, do you think that’s doable just by sort of getting off to a good start in, for example, Germany?

So maybe you’re not that dependent on when this ACIP recommendation comes from The U. S. And then lastly, anything you hear from the U. S. Government with regards to commitment to biodefense going forward, manufacturing in The U.

S, etcetera. It would be appreciated to get some insights whether you hear anything. Thank you very much.

Paul Chaplin, CEO, Bavarian Nordic: Yes. Thanks, Michael. Yes, let’s see if I can answer these. So, ACIP meeting, yes, the scheduled meeting for the end of Feb was initially postponed and then canceled. The reasons for the cancellation are public, but we haven’t really heard anything.

Radio silence, I would say, in terms of when it will be rescheduled. So we’re not hearing anything from the working group and the CDC or anything. So I can’t add more to that one. In terms of the CHIC launch, despite the ACIP meeting, as we just said, we plan to launch as planned. Now again, I’m not trying to say that the ACIP recommendation is not going to have an not having an ACIP recommendation as we anticipated won’t have an impact, but we are going to go ahead on a launch because a lot of the launch to do with the disease awareness of healthcare professionals and the like.

So we’re going ahead and hopefully that will allow us to catch up on the projected sales in The U. S. I would say the one thing about EU since the approval, the relatively recent approval, we have had a lot of requests in Europe asking us when are we launching, when is the vaccine going to be available. That’s from a number of KOLs that we’re already interacting with through our other travel vaccine franchise, but also some of the other travel clinics that again we work with. So there seems to be quite a lot of interest in chikungunya.

So it’s too early to say, but again, you know, we’re excited about the opportunity and what we can do with Vincunya this year. Your last part of the question related to U. S. Government and what are we hearing about U. S.

Manufacturing. I think you indicated it in the question. There’s lots of rumors swirling around about all sorts of things. Concrete discussions or concrete facts are a little bit rarer, I would say. So for example, the discussion about U.

S. Manufacturing, that’s been around for a number of years now. And under the prior administration, it was made pretty clear that what they were talking about was an element of the manufacturing that needed to be in The U. S. And the other thing that was also made clear at that point, most of that slightly bought products would get a waiver as their specialty products and very few manufacturers.

Some of the rumors that are going around is that may be different and they’re looking for the full manufacturing to be performed in The U. S. And as you know, I think we need to be educating some of the officials that that may be possible. But if I just take rabies as an example, it just took four years to take transfer the drug substance and the filling. So it’s not a short endeavor just to move products from one country to another.

So I would say we have nothing concrete on what’s going to happen. And I think we just have to wait and see on really what concrete things come through, and then we’ll have to respond. But as you know, we have elements of manufacturing already set up in The U. S. So under certain circumstances and under certain rumors, we would be relatively unimpacted.

And then under other rumors, we could be more impacted, but they’re all rumors.

Michael Novod, Analyst, Nordea: Yes. Maybe a follow-up because I guess as and I know you have Grand River, of course, on fill finish in The U. S. I would imagine that also means that you’re not that sensitive to potential tariffs or at least not if it’s placed on bulk. And how does that actually work, whether you can comment on it, how does it work with your contract with the U.

S. Government if there are tariffs imposed because who’s sort of going to who’s going to pay the higher price for that?

Paul Chaplin, CEO, Bavarian Nordic: Yes. So we have Grand River that does filling for both Jynaeff, but also chikungunya vaccine. So filling packaging is in The U. S. So two of our products, as I said, are already partially manufactured in The U.

S. So again, depending on what the tariffs how the tariff if tariffs come and how they’re applied, we may or may not be impacted on some of our products. How it works with the government contract, we would pass through costs that we have to the government.

Michael Novod, Analyst, Nordea: Perfect. Thank you very much. Very clear. Thanks a lot.

Conference Operator: Thank you. There appear to be no further questions. Our next question comes from the line of Frederic Gomes from Pharmeum Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Michael Novod, Analyst, Nordea: Yes. Thank you for taking

Frederic Gomes, Analyst, Pharmeum Securities: my questions and congrats for the great numbers in 2024. You may know that there is currently an outbreak in on the French territory in the La Reunion Island. Authorities are monitoring the number of new cases and new hospitalizations. There are some rumors in France that saying that they could buy some vaccine. I’m just curious, are you looking to be part of the contest and maybe to start selling the vaccine for this kind of outbreak?

And I’m also curious to get your feedback on we are lucky because you disclosed with us some forecast for the phase this year. You mentioned the fact that you need to increase awareness. But do you think that don’t you think that the best awareness would be unfortunately a major outbreak that could spread outside of some territories and come to Europe the way we saw with the monkeypox?

Paul Chaplin, CEO, Bavarian Nordic: Yes. Thank you. So what I would say is, obviously, providing access to a vaccine to people that need it is a high priority to the company. Since the approval in the EU, we have been in contact with numerous individuals and or agencies and or governments who have reached out to us about the availability of our vaccine and how quickly we could supply. And we’re trying we’re in those discussions and addressing those queries.

So we’ll have to see how that goes. I think in terms of disease awareness, I think there is a couple of things. One, there’s a lot of people, while there’s a lot of people in the public who’ve never even heard chikungunya or what it is. And of course, we need to raise the awareness to mosquito transmitted disease that they really need to be aware of that go into endemic regions. There are also awareness that we have to raise with healthcare professionals who either haven’t not that familiar with chikungunya or even if they are familiar with chikungunya, don’t realize the severity of the disease and how serious it really is.

So those are two elements that we have been and will continue to work on in the launch phase. And unfortunately, from time to time, we are seeing outbreaks of people bringing back chikungunya in previous years from travel. And that is one of the awarenesses that we need to raise in that it’s probably only a matter of time until the mosquitoes, which are actually already present in Europe, can transmit the disease, become infected. So I’m not advocating for an outbreak, but I do believe there are elements that we need to work on and that we will be focusing on. But as I said, we are pleasantly surprised at the high level of interest that we’ve already encountered since the approval in the EU, which was what, just a few days ago.

Conference Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions.

Paul Chaplin, CEO, Bavarian Nordic: Okay. Well, thanks everyone for joining the call and for the questions. Have a great day. Thank you.

Conference Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.