Novavax Inc.’s shares surged after its COVID-19 vaccine won backing from a panel of U.S. public health advisers, a crucial step in providing officials with another tool against the virus as cases start to rise again.
The 12-member panel of outside experts convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously to recommend the shots for adults. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signed off on the advice from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which allows the shot to finally go into arms. The stock gained 12% at the close of New York trading Tuesday.
“If you have been waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine built on a different technology than those previously available, now is the time to join the millions of Americans who have been vaccinated,” Walensky said in a statement.
The Biden administration ordered 3.2 million doses of Novavax’s vaccine on July 11.
US regulators gave Novavax’s vaccine emergency clearance last week, making it the first one authorized that mimics the protein the coronavirus uses to enter cells. While millions of Americans have already received shots from Moderna Inc. and the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE partnership, public health officials have reported falling demand as concerns about the pandemic fade.
Unlike vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer that use mRNA technology to induce an immune response, Novavax’s shot is considered similar to classic vaccines that present the immune system with killed or weakened viruses. A vaccine from Johnson & Johnson uses a different technology based on a harmless cold virus and is still available, but U.S. regulators have expressed a preference for mRNA vaccines.
Some experts have said that Novavax’s vaccine could be attractive to people who are hesitant to receive the current crop of shots, which were developed with new technologies. However, recent data isn’t encouraging: A study by market research startup Morning Consult showed that 77% of unvaccinated adults would not get shots by Novavax if they became available for use.
One panel member expressed surprise that regulators cleared Novavax’s shot without an expiration date on the vial; instead, health care providers are supposed to use an online expiry date checker tool. That’s too much to ask of overworked health-care professionals, said panel member Sarah Long, professor of pediatrics at Drexel University College of Medicine.
“We’re losing credibility with the people who have to administer the vaccine,” Long said. “I would like somehow that caveat to be understood to push that to happen before this vaccine is provided for the United States population.”
Sandra Fryhofer, a nonvoting panel liaison from the American Medical Association, said that other vaccine makers had changed expiration dates on their products at unscheduled times, further adding to the confusion.
Novavax’s vaccine has already been authorized for use in countries including the U.K. and Japan, but the company grappled with manufacturing delays during the early days of the pandemic, preventing it from being a key player in the U.S. vaccination drive.
After the company secured $1.6 billion in federal government funding in exchange for 100 million doses of the shot, the setbacks pushed Novavax’s U.S. clinical trial back to December 2020. By that time, COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna had already been given the regulatory green light.
“We think vaccine choice is important, particularly as we expect to see ongoing surges of Covid-19 and work to increase vaccination rates,” said Stanley C. Erck, Novavax’s president and chief executive officer. “With demonstrated efficacy and a reassuring safety profile, our vaccine is the country’s first protein-based option.”
