Novavax: The Fall of a Covid-19 Vaccine Star
If you bought Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) stock two years ago, before the Covid-19 pandemic, your investment has scored a 857% gain.
If you bought it on Dec. 17, you’re down 58%.
Novavax should get approval on its Covid-19 vaccine, now called Nuxavoid, in 10 countries over the next few months. It will be available in Australia starting on February 21. It has a supply deal with Israel, one of the world’s most vaccinated nations.
But investors don’t care anymore. They figure we’re just going to have to live with the virus, so there’s no reason to buy the vaccine makers.
Are they right?
NVAX Stock by the Numbers
Novavax finally started generating big sales on its Covid-19 vaccine last year. This came to $942 million through September. But unlike Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) or Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), which won U.S. approval early and are profitable, Novavax lost a total of $906 million during the period.
This should change in the fourth-quarter report, due Feb. 28. Analysts expect Novavax to earn 18 cents/share, about $13 million, on revenue of $569 million. That’s nearly triple its third-quarter take.
But the fourth quarter is also when Novavax stock collapsed. Pfizer has begun testing an omicron-specific vaccine, with partners BionTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) of Germany. The Supreme Court decision striking down the Administration’s vaccine mandates in January was another big blow.
Novavax CEO Stanley Erck says that shouldn’t be. He says Novavax is a global vaccine play. Its vaccine is available in 170 countries. “Everything is coming together,” he said recently.
Third Place Loser
Everything may be coming together for Novavax. But everything is falling apart for the vaccine stocks.
I have been covering Novavax since the pandemic began. I called it the ultimate Covid play in August, 2020. That’s because its future was tied closely to one product. I recommended selling it in November. I described Novavax as playing a long game on vaccines last September. A few days later I wrote that investors weren’t waiting for that game to play out. Coming in third with its vaccine is just not seen as good enough.
But there’s another issue.
The Novavax vaccine has always been based on an adjuvant, called Matrix-M. Adjuvants enhance a vaccine’s potency, allowing more people to be treated with the same amount of the active agent.
But adjuvants have always been controversial. As I wrote at ZDNet back in 2009, adjuvants were a key element in the early vaccine backlash. That reliance may be one reason U.S. approval has been delayed. While the vaccine has been authorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), it still hasn’t been approved in the U.S.
The Bottom Line on NVAX Stock
Before the Covid-19 pandemic began, Novavax had never brought a product to market.
Its ResVax, meant to protect against respiratory syncytial virus, failed in a 2017 clinical trial, then failed again. Novavax came close to being delisted in 2019, and had to do a 1:20 reverse stock split.
Novavax recently submitted Phase 3 trial data on NanoFlu, a flu vaccine. But the odds on both ResVax and NanoFlu remain long.
On Jan. 28, Novavax still had a market capitalization of $5.5 billion, on what should be total revenue of nearly $1.5 billion for 2021. Wall Street has a habit of buying rumors and selling news. The news on Novavax finally looks good, but that won’t be good enough for investors to see a profit in 2022.
On the date of publication, Dana Blankenhorn held no positions in any company mentioned in this story. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a financial and technology journalist since 1978. He is the author of Technology’s Big Bang: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow with Moore’s Law, available at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com, tweet him at @danablankenhorn, or subscribe to his Substack.
