By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – BioNTech stock (NASDAQ:BNTX) rose more than 9% Monday as the company said it is developing an updated version of the Covid-19 vaccine that targets the full spike protein of the Delta variant.
The company was back in black in the June quarter as its revenue soared more than 127 times. Total revenue came at 5.30 billion euro ($6.20 billion) compared to 41.7 million euro for the same quarter of 2020. Net profit was 2.78 billion euro compared to a loss of 88.3 million euro for the June quarter of 2020.
The German company and its partner in the Covid vaccine program, Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), anticipate the clinical study of the updated version of their Covid vaccine to begin this month, subject to regulatory approvals. Expenses and profit from the vaccine are split equally between Pfizer and BioNTech. Pfizer was up 1%.
Delta is the fastest spreading of all the mutants to have come out of the original coronavirus. It was first found in India and took thousands of lives there in April-May when the country reeled under its onslaught. The virus is now the most prevalent mutant in many countries. Some of those are now seeing a resurgence in Covid cases.
As governments fight vaccine hesitancy and rush to grab more shots from the select manufacturers, there is now talk of booster shots being needed to protect against the virus.
As of July 21, 2021, BioNTech and Pfizer have shipped approximately 1 billion doses to more than 100 countries or territories around the world.
BioNTech and Pfizer have signed orders of more than 2.2 billion doses for delivery in 2021 and more than 1 billion doses for 2022 and beyond as of the 21st of last month. The company said further discussions for additional dose commitments are ongoing and the order book is expected to grow.
The two companies expect annual manufacturing capacity of their Covid vaccine to reach 3 billion doses by the end of this year and scale that up to 4 billion doses in 2022.
BioNTech also provided an update on its second-quarter performance today as it swung to profit in the three months ended June 30 and comfortably beat all estimates.