One of the big winners prior to the weekend was a small-cap biotech stock that’s been getting a lot of attention recently. Vaxart (NASDAQ: VXRT) is oen of many smaller vaccine developers that have exploded in popularity. Despite the proliferation of other COVID-19 vaccine treatments, mainly from larger pharmaceutical companies, Vaxart had seen its share skyrocket just before the weekend as one major Wall Street analyst upgraded the stock to a firm buy.
Vaxart has a few different candidates in its pipeline, although its COVID-19 vaccine is perhaps the most popular. Analyst Yasmeen Rahimi at Piper Sandler initiated coverage of Vaxart with a strong buy rating, putting a target price of $18 per share. That’s more than double its current price of $8.70. In comparison, theirs only one other major Wall Street analyst that’s covering Vaxart right now, the latter of which having a price target of just $13 for the company.
“We are initiating coverage on Vaxart, Inc (VXRT) with an Overweight rating and $18 price target. VXRT is a clinical-stage biotech developing seven oral vaccines: five in the clinic for COVID-19, norovirus, and influenza; and two in preclinical stages for RSV and HPV.At the core is VAAST, a thoughtfully designed, novel adenoviral type5 + TLR3-adjuvant platform, providing six key advantages (pgs 9-11),” read a note from Rahimi regarding Vaxart’s bullish potential in the long-run.
Although not its most important candidate, Vaxart’s COVID-19 treatment has been the main catalysts for how its stock has moved over the past few months. The Food and Drug Administration recently said that it plans to reject new emergency use authorizations for future COVID-19 vaccines. Besides Vaxart, this includes Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Ocugen, and CureVac, all companies working on their own COVID-19 treatments as well.
Despite this piece of potentially bad news, shareholders and investors didn’t seem to be fazed by this announcement. Although its COVID-19 vaccine grabs a lot of headlines right now, the company’s main appeal is its VAAST oral vaccine platform, as opposed to any singular vaccine. The VAAST platform could easily be outsourced to the rest of the biotech industry, with companies developing their own oral vaccines using this new technology. In comparison to this opportunity, Vaxart’s COVID-19 vaccine is not that big of a deal, despite its headline-grabbing nature.
Shares of Vaxart were up around 21.9% on Friday in response to the news. At one point earlier this year, Vaxart’s stock skyrocketed from around $6.3 to over $23.3 over the span of a couple of weeks. Since then, prices have stabilized back down, although it still remains an occasionally mentioned stock among some meme traders on WallStreetBets.
Vaxart Company Profile
Vaxart Inc is a clinical-stage biotechnology company. It focuses on the development of oral recombinant vaccines to protect against a wide range of infectious diseases. The products under its tablet pipeline consist of the treatment of Coronavirus, Norovirus, Seasonal Influenza, RSV(respiratory syncytial virus), and HPV(Human papillomavirus) Therapeutic. It operates in a single segment, which is the discovery and development of oral recombinant protein vaccines. Geographically all the business activity functions through the region of the United States. – Warrior Trading News