CureVac (NASDAQ:CVAC) lost half its value last week when investors could not believe the COVID-19 clinical data. What happened?
CureVac posted its Phase 2b/3 trial of its first-generation Covid-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV. The company reported poor vaccine efficacy. The study has 40,000 subjects and at least 13 variants circulating within the study population. CVnCoV demonstrated an interim vaccine efficacy of 47%. This did not meet its statistical success criteria.
CureVac will continue its final analysis, assessing the data for the most appropriate regulatory pathway. The company sequenced 124 out of the 134 Covid-19 cases. It found that 57% of the cases were caused by Variants of Concern.
CEO Dr. Franz-Werner Haas said, "We recognize that demonstrating high efficacy in this unprecedented broad diversity of variants is challenging."
Markets are pricing in the risks of CureVac failing to get regulatory approval for its vaccine. Investors may consider Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) stock instead. The company ran a trial involving 29,960 participants. The overall efficacy of NVX-CoV2373 is around 90% against COVID-19. The efficacy of Covid-19 Variants of Concern and Variants of Interest is 93%.
CVAC stock is still risky despite already dropping. Investors should consider NVAX stock instead. Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) and BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) are also in a better position than CureVac as their vaccine shipments rise.
