Novavax has signed a contract with the United States government's Operation Warp Speed vaccine program valued at up to $1.6 billion, obtaining more government dollars than any other organization for a prospective COVID-19 vaccine.
The New York-listed biotech group is aiming to use the funding to embark on a final-stage clinical trial and make 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate by January but has yet to get any drugs approved.
Novavax joins major drugmakers Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and AstraZeneca in Operation Warp Speed, a U.S. Department of Health initiative championed by United States President Donald Trump that seeks to fast-track the development of a COVID-19 prospect.
Through this contract, the federal government has now spent approximately $4 billion in vaccine-pursuing firms but has received no detail about how Operation Warp Speed invests money, which departments the funding comes from, or how decisions are carried out.
The money has been allotted to six firms with different track records and promising but untested innovations in other cases. British drugmaker AstraZeneca has been granted $1.2 billion in federal funding for its vaccine, which uses a harmless virus to cause an immune response.
Moderna Therapeutics, which has gotten over $500 million, also has never produced a product to market and uses a genetic technology that is valued for its speed but has never brought out a successful human treatment.
In a statement, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said adding Novavax' candidate vaccine to Operation Warp Speed's large portfolio of drugs "increases the odds that we will have a safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of the year," Melissa Quinn of CBS News, wrote.
Novavax received the biggest grant by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations at $388 million, which helped the group fund the first test and acquire a facility in the Czech Republic that will have the capacity to produce 1 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021.
Shares in Novavax (NVAX) are currently climbing 42 percent during early morning sessions after the company disclosed the US government funding. In January, Novavax's stock traded around $5. As of Monday's close of trade, the stock was near $80.
Novavax chief executive officer Stanley Erck said they are pleased with the US government for its confidence in the biotech group and are doing their best to produce a vaccine to contain the pandemic. Erck added the deal with the US government would allow the group to start making the drugs before the company concludes final-phase clinical trials, expected by end of 2020.
