Sometimes a few sentences are enough to boost a company’s share price. In the pandemic, investors react euphorically to all stocks whose products, even if they are not yet on the market, promise a little more freedom. The Franco-Austrian company Valneva served the desires of investors on Wednesday evening. Their vaccine isn’t approved yet, but laboratory studies give hope. A first shows that after three doses, all tested samples show neutralizing antibodies against the original coronavirus and the delta variant, 87 percent also against the mutant omicron.
The company’s share price skyrocketed on Thursday. It is listed on the US technology exchange Nasdaq and on Euronext in Paris, where the paper increased by a good fifth to just under 17 euros by the afternoon. The IPO took place at the beginning of May 2021. The share is widely diversified, around three quarters of the shares are in circulation, the largest single shareholder is the French biopharmaceutical group Grimaud with a stake of 13 percent. Valneva was formed in 2013 from the merger of the Austrian company Intercell and the French company Vivalis. Last year, Valneva, with around 700 employees, turned over a good 110 million euros and made a loss of around 65 million euros.
VLA2001 is an inactivated vaccine, in the case of Valneva it contains the complete inactivated coronavirus and adjuvants designed to boost the body’s immune response. It is a tried and tested method, and the remedies for hepatitis B, tetanus and whooping cough are also dead vaccines. The great hope is that people will accept dead coronavirus vaccines that reject the mRNA-based preparations, partly because they contain parts of the coronavirus genome. So far are in the EU five vaccines approved by Biontech/Pfizer, Moderna, Astra Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) and most recently Novavax, whose delivery in Germany has not yet started.
The rolling review process for VLA2001 at the European approval authority EMA has been running since the beginning of December. Valneva expects approval in the first quarter of 2022. Delivery in Europe could then start in April, subject to approval, according to the announcement on Thursday. As early as November, the company concluded an agreement with the EU Commission for the delivery of 60 million cans within two years, a good 24 million cans in 2022 alone. In addition to VLA2001, there are other candidates who are in the rolling process. These are vaccines from the Chinese company Sinovac Life Sciences, the Russian Gamaleya Institute (Sputnik V) and the French company Sanofi Pasteur.