Bavarian Nordic A/S announced that the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has granted marketing authorization in the United Kingdom (UK) for VIMKUNYA^® (recombinant, adsorbed) for active immunization for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus in individuals 12 years and older.

The vaccine was approved following MHRA review under the international recognition procedure, which is a targeted assessment that recognizes approvals from certain other regulatory bodies, in this case the recent approval by the European Commission. Bavarian Nordic is targeting launch of the vaccine in the UK during the summer of 2025.

“Chikungunya mostly represents a risk for UK citizens traveling overseas to affected regions in the Americas, Africa and Asia, but as recent research has shown, invasive mosquitos known to carry the disease have established themselves in many parts of Southern Europe and are moving further north due to climate change¹,” said Paul Chaplin, President and CEO of Bavarian Nordic. “The mosquitos cannot be stopped, but with preventative measures such as vaccines, we can mitigate the impact of emerging diseases like chikungunya for those at risk, and we look forward to launching our vaccine in the UK later this year.”

The UK approval of VIMKUNYA marks the third approval of Bavarian Nordic’s chikungunya vaccine, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Commission in February 2025.^2,3 Bavarian Nordic has also submitted an application to Health Canada, potentially supporting approval of the chikungunya vaccine in the first half of 2026.