Pfizer Makes $530M Vaccine Play With Novavax Deal After Rumors of BioNTech Pullback

 

In November, Pfizer was reportedly looking to divest its stake in BioNTech, though the German biotech at the time denied these rumors.

In a vaccines-focused deal, Pfizer is fronting $30 million to partner with Novavax, just a few months after the pharma was rumored to be distancing itself from its other big vaccine collaborator, BioNTech.

Aside from its upfront commitment, Pfizer will put up to $500 million on the line in development and sales milestones, according to a Tuesday news release. Novavax will also be entitled to high-mid-single digit percentage royalties on net sales that might result from the partnership.

In exchange for its investments, Pfizer will receive a non-exclusive license to Novavax’ Matrix-M adjuvant technology, which makes use of naturally occurring compounds from soapbark trees, allowing for a “targeted and efficient way” of boosting the body’s immune response, according to the company’s website.

Pfizer will be able to apply the adjuvant to up to two disease areas, according to the press announcement, though it remains unclear what these indications are or if the company has a set number of programs in mind.

Tuesday’s vaccines pact with Novavax follows reports in November 2025 that Pfizer was considering divesting its stake in vaccine partner BioNTech, with which it owns the COVID-19 shot Comirnaty. Pfizer at the time remained tight-lipped about the rumors, and BioNTech denied the news: “We continue to have a close and strong collaboration,” a spokesperson for the company told Reuters, otherwise refusing to comment on Pfizer’s business dealings.

The Novavax deal also comes amid growing skepticism toward vaccines, driven in no small part by controversial policies and antagonistic rhetoric from the Trump administration. Last month, for instance, Vinay Prasad, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, claimed, without providing evidence, that “at least” 10 children had died “because of” COVID-19 vaccines. An internal FDA memo released two weeks later stated that the claim was an overestimate.

But at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference last week, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said these high-level headwinds present a business-making opportunity. “If you’re a short-term thinker, you don’t move,” he said, referring to the high level of uncertainty in the vaccine space right now. “If you’re a long-term thinker—which is what we have to be—then there are less people to compete against to make acquisitions.”

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