Release date: 22 March 2021
Promoter – Financial Intermediary
UNIVERCELLS SALocation
Description
The project concerns investments into an innovative and versatile vaccine manufacturing facility as well as process development and manufacturing scale up activities to enable the production of large volumes of prophylactic vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 as well as in co-development of a pipeline of COVID-19 vaccines.
Additionality and Impact
The financing of this project
addresses the failure in financial markets for RDI - in this specific case in
biopharmaceuticals. The failure arises in part from limited access to and/or
higher cost of financing due to information asymmetries associated with the
inherent uncertainty of RDI activities, and resulting in high screening and
monitoring costs. Other factors are the misalignment of incentives, lack of
collateral and/or lack of track record.
Through support from the
Infectious Diseases Finance Facility (IDFF), the operation addresses the need
of a financially underserved company operating in the sector of development COVID-19
vaccines and therapeutics, as well as boosting the European manufacturing volumes
and capacities. The contribution to EU policy is therefore significant.
The EIB's contribution is notable
on both the financial and non-financial side. The funding provided under IDFF
will substantially enhance the financial resources available to the borrower to
execute its development plan and may crowd in further investors. Structuring
the financing as a venture debt operation (equity risk) is appropriate given
the borrower's stage of development and takes its cash flow profile into
account. Therefore, the EIB also provides an added value in terms of financial
structuring expertise, in addition to the technical contribution and advice.
Objectives
The project concerns investments into an innovative and versatile vaccine manufacturing facility as well as process development and manufacturing scale up activities to enable the production of large volumes of prophylactic vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 as well as in co-development of a pipeline of COVID-19 vaccines.
Sector(s)
- Industry - Manufacturing
Proposed EIB finance (Approximate amount)
EUR 30 million
Total cost (Approximate amount)
EUR 60 million
Environmental aspects
The project mainly concerns investments in research, development and innovation (RDI) that are expected to be carried out in the Promoter's existing facilities or other research centres already authorised for the same purpose and would therefore not require an environmental impact assessment (EIA) under the Directive 2014/52/EU amending the EIA Directive 2011/92/EU. Investments are also expected to be made into the furnishing and validation of an existing manufacturing facility, this aspect of the project falls under the annex II of the EIA directive (2014/52/EU), referring to the manufacture of pharmaceutical products. Full environmental details will be verified during appraisal, including evidence of any screening by the competent authorities.
Procurement
The Promoter is a private company, not operating in the utilities sector and does not have the status of a contracting authority; thus the project is not covered by the EU directives on procurement. However, the Promoter's procurement procedures are expected to be in line with EIB guidelines for private sector projects. Details will be assessed during the project's due diligence.
Status
Signed - 24/06/2021
Disclaimer
Before financing approval by the Board of Directors, and before loan signature, projects are under appraisal and negotiation. The information and data provided on this page are therefore indicative.
They are provided for transparency purposes only and cannot be considered to represent official EIB policy (see also the Explanatory notes).