Status: 09/20/2022 12:14 p.m
In an interview, the US President declared the corona pandemic over. On the stock market, this weighs on vaccine manufacturers such as Moderna and BioNTech. But it should remain a billion-dollar business for the companies.
Statements by US President Joe Biden about the current status of corona infections have also made waves on the financial markets. In an interview with the CBS show “60 Minutes” Biden declared the pandemic over on Sunday. “The pandemic is over,” says Biden in the interview, which was recorded on the sidelines of the Detroit Auto Show.
“We still have a problem with Corona. We’re still working on it,” said Biden. “But the pandemic is over. As you can see, nobody is wearing masks anymore. Everyone seems to be in pretty good shape, so I think the tide is turning.”
On the stock market, the president’s remarks led to a sell-off in vaccine stocks. Manufacturers of corona vaccines – Moderna, BioNTech and Novavax – lost up to nine percent of their market value on the stock exchange. Shares in the broader US pharmaceutical group Pfizer also fell, albeit not as significantly.
The health emergency still applies
The United States has not yet formally declared the pandemic over. The national health emergency that was first imposed in January 2020 is still in effect. Most recently, it was expected that the US authorities would extend this again in October – and let it expire next January. Just a few weeks ago, the government in Washington had asked the US Congress for billions more in order to be able to maintain the range of tests and vaccinations even in the event of a possible corona wave in the fall.
However, the corona restrictions in the USA have largely been lifted. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said last week that an end to the pandemic was “in sight”. At the same time, he urged governments around the world to remain vigilant.
The Mainz-based biotech company BioNTech, which is listed on the US technology exchange Nasdaq, broke the market capitalization mark of 100 billion dollars just over a year ago. If BioNTech were listed in the leading German index DAX at the time, it would be the second most valuable company in the DAX, ahead of SAP. Since then, however, the company has lost significant market value. It is currently around $32.5 billion.
Continued high profits with vaccines
The group is doing good business again this year. In the second quarter of this year, BioNTech achieved sales of 3.2 billion euros, with the vaccine manufacturer earning almost 1.67 billion euros. However, compared to the previous year and also to the same quarter of the previous year, both sales and net income shrank significantly. For comparison: At the end of March 2022, the company was still generating sales of 6.37 billion euros and a surplus of 3.7 billion euros.
The American competitor Moderna still has sales in the billions. In the second quarter, the company generated around 4.75 billion dollars, the net profit there was last at 2.2 billion dollars. On the other hand, the company has lost almost half of its market value on the stock exchange since the beginning of January. Since the beginning of the year, Moderna stocks have fallen by more than 45 percent, and thus more than BioNTech. The company is currently valued at around $50 billion on the stock exchange.
The US vaccine manufacturer Novavax has even lost more than two-thirds of its stock market value since the beginning of the year. The company’s protein-based vaccine with viral antigens was seen as an alternative to other manufacturers’ mRNA and vector vaccines. However, there was no particularly high demand for the vaccine.
The fact that the rapid growth of the past few quarters for companies is no longer continuing – also triggered by lower demand for the vaccines – also plays a role. Until recently, both sales and net profit could be increased from quarter to quarter in a year-on-year comparison. However, they shrank at both BioNTech and Moderna when the numbers were last released.
Subdued demand for booster vaccines
In the USA and in many other countries, significantly fewer corona vaccines are being vaccinated than at the height of the pandemic. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recently gave the green light for the Corona booster vaccinations from Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer, which have been adapted to the Omicron variant. However, demand for the booster vaccines is currently subdued. According to the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance Physician Care in Germany (Zi), panel doctors have only ordered around 2.8 million doses of the BA.1 vaccine so far. The demand from patients is also rather low because of the millions of infections from the last corona wave, according to the Zi.
Higher demand could trigger the upcoming delivery of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine adapted to the Omicron variant BA.4/BA.5. The Omikron BA.4/BA.5 variant dominates the current infection process.
The Association of Research-Based Drug Manufacturers (vfa) assumes that the German pharmaceutical industry will benefit greatly from corona vaccines for years to come. According to an analysis by the vfa, this will result in an additional production value of 16.1 billion euros by 2030. Arithmetically, 57,200 jobs would result from vaccine production over a year. The economic effects are estimated conservatively.