5 Biotechs That Escaped The Coronavirus Onslaught Last Week

As the coronavirus uncertainty gripped the economy last week, the U.S. market witnessed probably its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. The three major U.S. indices posted steep losses last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite declined 12.3%, 11.5% and 10.5%, respectively last week.

With the situation in China getting worse and the risk of global coronavirus outbreak rising, faster development of vaccines is the need of the hour. Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a public-private nonprofit organization, is funding several biotechs for developing a 2019-nCoV vaccine. Apart from CEPI funded biotechs, several others like J&J (NYSE:JNJ) , Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) , Regeneron have expressed interest in developing a vaccine for 2019-nCoV.

The pharma/biotech sector also declined significantly last week. The NYSE ARCA Pharmaceutical Index declined 9.7% in the past week. However, there were a few stocks, which outperformed the industry last week as they are working on developing a vaccine/treatment for the fatal respiratory disease.

Here is a chart showing the share price movement of the five stocks last week.

Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX)

The company last week said it that it has progressed with development plans for a vaccine for 2019-nCoV. Novavax is trying to leverage its proprietary recombinant nanoparticle vaccine technology to generate antigens derived from coronavirus spike (S) protein and has created 2019-nCoVvaccine candidates, which are presently being developed in pre-clinical studies. It plans to advance 2019-nCoVvaccine candidate to phase I testing in May/June.

Shares of the company surged 107.2% last week compared to the industry’s decrease of 6.6%. It carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA)

Moderna is being funded by CEPI and has also collaborated with to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for quickly developing a vaccine for 2019-nCoV. Last week, it said that it has already shipped the first batch of its potential 2019-nCoVvaccine (mRNA-1273) to NIAID for phase I testing in just 42 days from sequence selection.

Shares of the company were up 42.2% last week. Moreover, the company carries a Zacks Rank of 2.

Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD)

The leading biotech announced last week that the FDA has accepted its investigational new drug (IND) filing seeking approval to study its investigational antiviral candidate, remdesivir for the potential treatment of 2019-nCoV. As a result, Gilead initiated two phase III studies which will evaluate two dosing regimens of remdesivir in adults diagnosed with 2019-nCoV. Beginning in March, the studies will enrol around 1000 patients at medical centers primarily in Asian countries. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has recommended remdesivir as a partial remedy to the coronavirus though it has yet not been proven that the candidate can treat the disease.

Though Gilead’s shares have declined 0.5% last week, it still has fared better than the industry’s decrease of 6.6%.

Vaxart (NASDAQ:VXRT)

Vaxart stock surged 163.3% last week. It carries a Zacks Rank #2. Vaxart has initiated a program to develop oral tablet vaccine candidates based on the published genome of the 2019-nCoV based on its proprietary oral vaccine platform, VAAST.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO)

Inovio, which also carries a Zacks Rank #2, was up 14.2% last week. Inovio has received a grant of up to $9 million from CEPI for development of a 2019-nCoV vaccine named INO-4800 by leveraging its DNA medicine platform

Conclusion

Though these stocks are booming on the prospects of developing a vaccine/treatment for coronavirus, there is a possibility that by the time they succeed, we might not need it anymore. Also, even if they succeed in making the vaccine, they might have to provide it at low prices, which means it would probably not add meaningfully to their profits.

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