Unrest has become the norm for many companies in 2020 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. This disruption worked to the detriment of most companies. But for some, the changing dynamics were brought about by the outbreak of coronavirus positive catalysts. You can place BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) en Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE: EBS) firmly in the latter category.
BioNTech stock skyrocketed in July more than 630% year to date before giving up some of its profits. Shares of German biotech are still up 115% by 2020, thanks to intense interest in their new candidate for coronavirus vaccine. Emergent BioSolutions stocks have grown nearly 140% year-on-year so far due to their COVID-19 programs.
Which of these two files is the better choice now? Here’s how BioNTech and Emergent BioSolutions stack up against each other.
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The case for BioNTech
BioNTech has previously begun work on developing a new vaccine for coronavirus. On March 16, the company announced a partnership with Chinese drug maker Fosun Pharma to develop and commercialize the leading COVID-19 vaccine candidate from its BNT162 program in China.
A day later, BioNTech announced an even more important deal. Great pharma company Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) collaborated with the small German biotech to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine throughout the world, except for China. BioNTech received a prepayment of $ 185 million ($ 113 million of this total was an equity investment from Pfizer). It could also receive up to $ 563 million in future milestone payments.
Pfizer and BioNTech are now among the leaders in the coronavirus vaccine race. The two companies began a pivotal phase 2/3 clinical study of lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b2 in late July and hope to report results as early as October. They have also entered into offer agreements with the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
The BioNTech pipeline includes eight other clinical programs as well. BNT122 is the most advanced candidate in clinical trials. BioNTech and partner Roche be evaluated the experimental therapy combined with Merck‘s Keytruda in a phase 2 study as a potential treatment for melanoma.
The company also recently announced plans to work with Regeneron to combine BNT111 with Libtayo cancer immunotherapy in a phase 2 study as a potential treatment for melanoma. BioNTech’s early stage programs focus on several other types of cancer.
The excitement of investors over the potential for BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate has generated impressive gains for the biotech portfolio, pushing its market cap to nearly $ 16 billion. BioNTech has no approved products on the market yet and remains useless. The company’s share offering in July put it financially in a strong position with a cash close to $ 1.4 billion.
The case for Emergent BioSolutions
In early March, Emergent BioSolutions announced an agreement with Novavax to produce their COVID-19 vaccine candidate. That was just the tip of the iceberg. In the coming weeks and months, Emergent will sign deals with other COVID-19 vaccine developers, including AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson, en Wax species.
The US Government’s Operation Warp Speed also gave Emergent a new $ 628 million contract in June under an existing coronavirus vaccine contract. Emergent will make its contract development and manufacturing expertise available to coronavirus vaccine developers supported by the US government.
But efforts by Emergent BioSolutions’ coronavirus go beyond producing faxes for other companies. Emergent is also developing experimental therapies for the treatment of COVID-19 using plasma obtained from patients recovering from the disease.
The company already markets several products. These include anthrax vaccines Anthrasil and BioThrax, smallpox vaccine ACAM2000, and Narcan nasal spray to treat opioid overdose. In June, Emergent lost a lawsuit in U.S. District Court over a key patent for Narcan. The company intends to appeal the decision.
The Emergent pipeline includes seven clinical programs. The main candidate, Vaxchora, is being evaluated in a Phase 3 study in vaccinating children against cholera infection. Emergent has tested several vaccine candidates in Phase 2 tests, including one for spleen case and one for chikungunya virus. Several more are in preclinical tests, including a vaccine for universal flu. In addition to its two COVID-19 candidates for plasma therapy in Phase 1 testing, the company is also evaluating an experimental Zika virus treatment.
Even after the large rise in the stock so far this year, Emergent’s valuation is close to $ 7 billion. The company is profitable and could provide higher profits in the future with its offerings for coronavirus vaccine.
Better coronavirus stock
Emergent stands to benefit, regardless of which COVID-19 faxes succeed. That makes it less risky than BioNTech. Emergent’s rating is also less than half that of BioNTech, but it generates profits that BioNTech is not.
I think both BioNTech and Emergent BioSolutions are stocks for investors to look at closely. However, my opinion is that Emergent BioSolutions is the better choice at the moment.
