With a little over a month left in 2020, vaccine stocks continue to be some of the most volatile companies on the market. As of right now, it seems that the big vaccine developers – large-cap pharmaceutical companies in particular – are firmly in the lead when it comes to bringing in their potential vaccine. However, some of these big players are running into some unexpected hiccups. Just before the weekend, AstraZeneca (NASDAQ: AZN) had to announce a fluke in its phase 3 trial.
In particular, AstraZeneca had tested two different dosing regimens for its coronavirus vaccine. The one that had proven to be 90% effective on average turned out to be a half dose followed by the full dose one month later. It turned out that a manufacturing error was the main cause of the initial half-dose.
The other dosing regime, as it turned out, was just 62% effective in COVID-19 patients. This particular regime included two full doses, rather than the one-and-a-half doses administered in the other regime. While it’s curious why a smaller overall dose proved more effective, investors ended up accepting the fluke and dismissing it for what it is. AstraZeneca added that it would be trying out this half-dose regimen in the future to see if it would be more effective.
Shares of AstraZeneca ended up tumbling a bit in response to the news, but ended Friday on a somewhat of a positive note following what’s been a steady decline this past week. While bad news for the pharmaceutical giant, this slip up was good news for many of its smaller competitors, which saw their stocks jump on this clinical error from AstraZeneca.
The biggest winner prior to the weekend was Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX), whose shares shot up around 22.5% in light of this AstraZeneca trial hiccup. Novavax, one of the smaller vaccine developers out there, has fallen slightly out of favor in comparison to the larger vaccine makers out there, such as Pfizer (NASDAQ: PFE).
Another smaller vaccine maker, Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO), shot up around 18% as well as in response to the news. Again, there wasn’t any big news to justify Inovio’s jump beside the AstraZeneca setback. While Inovio used to be perhaps the hottest COVID-19 stock on the market, the company has fallen out of favor after it failed to secure enough patients for a large-scale, phase 3 trial.
Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) also shot up around 16.4% on Friday, with Monday pre-market trading seeing shares rise another 6.3%. Expect these coronavirus stocks to remain somewhat volatile as we start the new week off.
Novavax Company Profile
Novavax Inc is a biotechnology company that develops vaccines. The company works in the clinical stage of development with a focus on delivering novel products that prevent a broad range of diseases. Novavax works together with its wholly owned Swedish subsidiary to produce vaccine candidates to respond to both known and emerging disease threats. The company believes its vaccine technology has the potential to be applied broadly to a wide variety of human infectious diseases. Novavax develops product candidates geared toward all age demographics of the general population. – Warrior Trading News
