Melbourne, Nov 29, 2005 (ABN Newswire) - Australian biopharmaceutical development company BioDiem Ltd (ASX: BDM) announced today it had received payment of US$1m from Akzo Nobel's Nobilon on the anniversary of signing a licensing agreement granting Nobilon the majority of rights to BioDiem's novel intranasal influenza vaccine.

BioDiem has now received US$3m from a total of up to US$8m in development milestones payable over the next few years and prior to sales of the flu vaccine, for which royalties will be paid. Nobilon is in preclinical development with the influenza vaccine, to be manufactured in cell culture.

Cell Culture offers rapid scale-up and efficiency advantages over the more traditional egg based production methods. The US government has nominated production in cell culture as the preferred "next generation" method of manufacturing flu vaccines, which could be particularly important in the event of a flu pandemic. The BioDiem intranasal, cold-adapted influenza vaccine technology offers the potential advantage of a broader protection against variant strains of influenza.

The vaccine is being developed both as an annual epidemic vaccine and as a pandemic vaccine candidate against strains such as H5N1. The licensing agreement grants global manufacturing rights and marketing rights in Europe and Rest of the World (except North America) to Nobilon who will pay for the development of the flu vaccine through extensive clinical trials to registration in its territories with access to the data for registrations in North America.

BioDiem retains the right to license out the sales and marketing rights to the world's largest market, North America. Japanese rights are to be shared according to future agreement.

BioDiem Ltd is an Australian listed company, based in Melbourne, with an international focus on finding, adding value to and commercialising world-class research for vaccines, infectious diseases and other therapeutic areas. The company takes a cost-efficient approach to drug development by project managing a portfolio of new products through collaborations with academic centres of excellence, contract research organizations and partnerships with international pharmaceutical companies.