Investors had a ton of coronavirus (COVID-19)-related news to sort through on Monday. With a fresh outbreak of new cases taking place in Europe, specifically Italy, European markets ended up plummeting while U.S. futures ended up sinking as well.
Major healthcare stocks across America also ended up plummeting significantly. Overall, vaccine makers working on coronavirus-related treatments have been the biggest winners, with the small-cap NanoViricides (NYSEAMERICAN: NNVC) gaining as much as 38% on Monday.
The company posted a press release on its website in which NanoViricides confirmed that it had enough cash to fund the development of its projects without needing extra funding. While this news by itself likely wouldn’t have caused a 38% spike in the stock price, the general anxiety of the market and investors regarding the new COVID-19 outbreaks was enough to send the stock surging.
“It is well recognized that development of vaccines takes a long time, and that vaccines can often be ineffective against viruses due to viral mutations that lead to emergence of resistant strains,” said the company in an official statement. “It is also well recognized and well documented that monoclonal antibodies as antiviral drugs are very difficult to develop and often lead to emergence of resistant viral strains due to viral mutations.”
While Nanoviricides has been one of the most-watched vaccine makers over the past few weeks, other companies have received a fair bit of attention on Monday as well. Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) saw its shares jump by 22% in after-hours trading when the company announced that its potential COVID-19 vaccine was ready for testing in human patients. Another company developing a potential treatment, Gilead, also surged on good news as a World Health Organization (WHO) representative spoke highly about the company’s former Ebola drug, remdesivir, and its effectiveness in treating patients.
WHO also went on to warn Americans that as many as 150 separate drugs could face supply shortages due to medical supply chain problems in China. The country remains one of the largest manufacturers of drug ingredients and should the COVID-19 outbreak continue to spread and shut down businesses in China, it could severely impact output. In turn, many drugs that Americans rely on could be in short supply.
Overall, it was a pretty hectic day for the markets in general. Both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ are down around 3.5% in response to the news, extending what’s already been a pretty tough week for major indexes. While the rate of new COVID-19 outbreaks in China has slowed down, the unexpected surge in non-Chinese cases has rekindled fear among investors once again.
NanoViricides Company Profile
Nanoviricides Inc is a nano-biopharmaceutical company which is engaged in discovering, developing and commercializing therapeutics to advance the care of patients suffering from life-threatening viral infections. The company engaged in the application of nanomedicine technologies to the complex issues of viral diseases. It focuses its research and clinical programs on specific anti-viral therapeutics and is seeking to add to its existing portfolio of products through its internal discovery and clinical development programs and through an in-licensing strategy. – Warrior Trading News
