Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) With his partner, it is likely to be the first drug maker Biotech (Nasdaq: BNTX), U.S. for coronavirus vaccine. To win the Emergency Use Authority (EUA). AstraZeneca (Nasdaq: AZN), With plans to make 3 billion doses next year, could deliver more doses of its COVID-19 vaccine globally than any other company.
What this leading position means Modern (Nasdaq: MRNA) Coronavirus is playing another fiddle in the vaccine race? Not for investors. Here are three key advantages that Modern has over both Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
Image Source: Getty Images.
1. No sharing required
Many of us were taught in kindergarten that it was good to share – and our kindergarten teachers were right. In the biopharmaceutical world, however, profit sharing can translate into slower growth. Both Pfizer and AstraZeneca will share the rewards they have received from the Covid vaccine.
Pfizer, as stated earlier, joined BioNatech on the coronavirus vaccine candidate BNT162B2. The major drug maker made more than 72 72 million in cash to its partner, and bought a 3 113 million stake in German Biotech. Bioentech 3 is also eligible to receive milestone payments of up to 56 563 million. Both companies did not disclose how they were splitting revenue and profits on any sale of BNT162B2, but Pfizer certainly would not pocket all the money generated by the vaccine.
AstraZeneca partnered with Oxford University to develop and distribute the experimental COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222. No financial details of the collaboration have been disclosed. However, you can trust that any sale of the Oxford vaccine will yield some level of royalty.
Moderna, meanwhile, has full ownership of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate MRNA-1273, and does not need to share any potential revenue or profits from vaccine sales. Approved, Arbutus Biopharma Lipid Nanoparticle (LNP) technology used by Moderna in the past is patented. However, Moderna has stated publicly that MRNA-1273 does not use any of the techniques covered by Arbutas’ patents.
2. Platform possibilities
If AstraZeneca obtains regulatory approval for AZD1222, the company has no other vaccine candidate that uses the same technology waiting in the wings. That’s the same story for Pfizer. However, the good news for Modern’s MRNA-1273 could bode well for the rest of Biotech’s pipeline.
Moderna hopes to achieve commercial success on the fully developed MRNA (Messenger RNA) platform for MRNA-1273. In addition to the MRNA-1273, the company’s pipeline currently includes 12 other mRNA vaccines and treatments in clinical trials. Moderna thinks that if MRNA-1273 starts to come in the expected big buck, it could expand that number to as many as 50 clinical-stage programs.
Believe it or not, Modernna CEO Stephen Bansal believes that Biotech could become the world’s largest vaccine company in the next four years. That outlook may be overly optimistic, but it should grow at a much faster rate than Moderna AstraZeneca or Pfizer because of its platform possibilities.
3. Size
Last – and at least, literally – the size of Moderna has an advantage over Pfizer and AstraZeneca. You may be thinking, “What size advantage?” After all, Pfizer’s market cap is at રમાં 200 billion. AstraZeneca has a market cap of close to 140 billion. Er is small compared to Modern, with a market cap of Rs 50 billion. However, the small size of the moderna is really a big advantage.
It is not surprising that Modern’s stock gain so far in 2020 has been much better than the performance of AstraZeneca and Pfizer. This is because the positive development for mRNA-1273 has moved the needle for Moderna much more than it did for AZD1222 and BNT162B2 for AstraZeneca and Pfizer, respectively.
Moderna still has more space to run than Ast Strazeneka or Pfizer. An additional 5 5 billion to 10 10 billion would be great for these two big drug manufacturers, but neither of the two pharma stocks would cause a skyscraper. On the other hand, this kind of earnings will probably ignite the stock price of Mod Moderna.
We should know soon whether MRNA-1273 will win the EU in the US and regulatory approvals in other countries. If that happens, Moderna will make billions of dollars in the short term. Its size, combined with its COVID vaccine and full ownership of its platform possibilities, will almost certainly make Moderna a much bigger winner again in 2021 than AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
