What happened
Vaccine Specialist Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) failed to avoid selling its shares on Monday. Although the company reported apparently good news, investors fled the stock, resulting in a nearly 10% drop in price on the day.
And
The good news is that Novavax is launching the phase 3 clinical trial for NVX-CoV2373, its entry into the coronavirus race. The company plans to recruit 30,000 participants for the PREVENT-19 study, which will be conducted in approximately 115 locations in the United States and Mexico.
As with other coronavirus vaccine developers, Novavax is bolstered by support from the US government’s Operation Warp Speed. A wing of the Department of Health and Human Services, Advanced Biomedical Research and Development (BARDA), is providing up to $ 1.6 billion in financing for PREVENT-19.
Image source: Getty Images.
Biotechnology is also conducting a phase 3 study of NVX-CoV2373 in the United Kingdom, in addition to early-stage clinical trials in South Africa, the United States and Australia.
Earlier this month, two coronavirus vaccines received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Both, ModernmRNA-1273 and Pfizer/BioNTechBNT162b2 da, are already being administered across the country.
What now
As NVX-CoV2373 is just entering phase 3 testing on a large scale, Novavax is well behind Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech. Even with some level of subsidy, the main candidates in this race earn a lot of money from mass vaccination; Novavax may be lagging far behind for some investors.