What happened
Coronavirus vaccine developer Novavaxin (NASDAQ: NVAX) The shares soared more than 30% in post-market trading on Thursday, in reaction to the good news about its candidate vaccine.
And
Novavax announced after market hours that its NVx-CoV2373 reached its primary endpoint and demonstrated more than 89% effectiveness in a phase 3 clinical trial in the United Kingdom. Serious, serious adverse events with medical assistance were at low levels.
Biotechnology also reported encouraging results for a phase 2b study in South Africa, although the effectiveness was lower (60% in the case of HIV-negative participants, who represented 94% of the study).
Image source: Getty Images.
Crucially, “NVX-CoV2373 is the first vaccine to demonstrate not only high clinical efficacy against COVID-19, but also significant clinical efficacy against emerging variants in the UK and South Africa,” said CEO Stanley Erck. Evidence suggests that the two variants are more contagious than the previous ones.
Novavax is currently enrolling participants for a phase 3 study of 30,000 forts in Mexico and the USA. So far, the company has selected more than 16,000 individuals.
What now
Yes, the coronavirus vaccines currently authorized in the USA – ModernmRNA-1273 and Pfizer and BioNTechBNT162b2 – demonstrated greater efficacy than NVx-CoV2373. Still, 89% is extremely high for any vaccine candidate, particularly one that was developed as fast as this one.
Novavax seems almost certain to gain regulatory authorization for NVx-CoV2373.