Valneva Shares Suffer as Coronavirus Vaccine Seen Arriving Too Late

   By Julien Maron and Joshua Kirby 
 

Shares in French biotechnology company Valneva SE sank Wednesday as concerns mounted over the commercial prospects of its coronavirus vaccine candidate, VLA2001.

At 0944 GMT, shares were down 12% at EUR13.82.

Vaccine scarcity could turn into a vaccine surplus as the pandemic becomes endemic, a situation in which only vulnerable people may be eligible for vaccination, Stifel analyst Max Herrmann said. In this context, Valneva could struggle to obtain new contracts, he said.

The Omicron variant has meanwhile shown that vaccines don't prevent record numbers of daily new transmissions, Mohamed Kaabouni of Portzamparc said. The first pharmaceutical players to introduce vaccines--Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc., Johnson & Johnson and, most recently, Novavax Inc.--have saturated the market in developed countries, Mr. Kaabouni added.

"It seems investors fear that those vaccines that have yet to get the nod from regulators, like Valneva's, risk arriving once the horse has already bolted," he said.

Valneva earlier this month confirmed that it expected to receive potential approval for VAL2001 from regulators in the European Union, the U.K. and Bahrain in the first quarter of the year.

This story was translated in whole or in part from a French-language version initially published by L'Agefi-Dow Jones.

Write to Julien Maron at [e-mail] and to Joshua Kirby at [e-mail]; @joshualeokirby

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 19, 2022 05:18 ET (10:18 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.