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Vaccines appear to be less effective against a new strain of Covid-19 first detected in South Africa. Above health workers in Soweto.
Michele Spatari / AFP via Getty Images
Investors are planning new winners in the Covid-19 vaccine race immediately after the latest test results are announced.
The expected data on Johnson & Johnson’s candidate for single-vaccine vaccine did not live up to expectations on Friday morning, while a biotechnology startup appears to be outperforming the major pharmaceutical company.
Stocks in Johnson & Johnson slipped, while shares of other companies manufacturing or developing vaccines rose. The biggest gain was biotechnology Novavax, which placed data on its own Covid-19 vaccine trial Thursday night that was stronger than the Johnson & Johnson data Friday morning.
Shares of Novavax rose 72.5% to $ 231.35 on Friday. A year ago, on January 29, 2020, the stock closed at $ 6.84.
Also climbed shares of
Modern
(MRNA), 7.2% higher;
Pfizer
(PFE), 1.3% higher; and
BioNTech
(BNTX), up 4.7%. All three currently sell authorized Covid-19 vaccines.
Johnson & Johnson’s shares, meanwhile, fell 3.3%. The
S&P 500
was also lower and decreased by 0.9%.
Johnson & Johnson reported early Friday that its Covid-19 vaccine was 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe Covid-19, less than the general expectation that the vaccine would be at least 80% effective.
The company also said that the vaccine was 85% effective in preventing serious diseases, and that it was completely effective in preventing hospitalization and the death of Covid-19.
It is important that the protection against moderate to severe diseases was significantly lower in South Africa, where almost all the cases were caused by a worrying new strain of the virus, but the protection against serious diseases there was just as strong as elsewhere. This is a positive sign, given new reports that the South African tribe is now spreading around the world.
In a conversation with investors on Friday, a Johnson & Johnson manager argued that the spread of variants to the Covid-19 virus means that it was impossible to compare the results of the Johnson & Johnson study with large studies conducted earlier. done in the year before those mutations were widespread.
“Our data are not comparable, apples to apples, versus data generated earlier,” said Dr. Mathai Mammen, global head of research and development at Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, said.
Novavax is conducting an additional Phase 3 trial of the vaccine in the US. Stan Erck, the company’s CEO, told Bloomberg that they were in talks with the FDA about whether they could submit the drug for emergency clearance now, or whether they would have to wait for the US trial to be completed. Johnson & Johnson said they plan to apply for emergency clearance in early February.
The ability of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to prevent serious diseases suggests that it is likely to play a key role in controlling the pandemic. One important element is price. Johnson & Johnson plans to distribute the vaccine on a non-profit basis during the pandemic. Novavax has not made such a commitment, nor has Moderna or Pfizer.
The vaccine has also been tested as a single dose, a significant advantage over the Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax offerings, which require two doses.
Yet the figures Johnson & Johnson suggest on Friday indicate that their vaccine does not offer as much protection against Covid-19 as the vaccine against Novavax, which said on Thursday that the vaccine was 89.3% effective in a phase 3 study in the United Kingdom, and 95.6% effective against the original Covid-19 strain.
Novavax appears to be in the same league as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in terms of effectiveness. In trials conducted earlier in the year, the vaccines showed 95% protection against symptomatic diseases.
“We believe these results clearly show a distinctive and more than viable efficacy and safety profile (in addition to improved distribution logistics) compared to current vaccines with EUA,” Charles Duncan, an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, said in a Novavax report Friday. comment written.
Novavax is already developing a vaccine or enhancer to target the South African variant of the Covid-19 virus. The company said the vaccine showed only 60% efficacy in a phase 2b study in South Africa, where it appears that almost all infections originated in the South African strain.
Novavax has no products marketed. It also develops vaccines to prevent the seasonal flu, respiratory syncytial virus and other diseases.
Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis by [email protected]