Moderna Inc.’s shares soared in the extended session Tuesday after the biotech company said its coronavirus vaccine candidate produced a “robust” immune system response in a larger group of people and the study will go on to a decisive clinical trial in July.
Results published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that a two-dose vaccination program induced the desired immune response in the 45 people evaluated, a larger group than in the preliminary Modern MRNA data,
released in May, and overall was safe and well tolerated, the company said.
Moderna’s shares ended the regular trading day up to 4.5%. The company is a leader among several experimental COVID-19 vaccines in development.
The results “reaffirm the positive provisional data” published in May, Moderna said. The test vaccine “induced rapid and strong immune responses against SARS-CoV-2,” the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
No serious adverse effects were reported, but some that did occur, such as headaches and fatigue, were “generally transient and mild to moderate in severity,” the company said.
Moderna is evaluating whether the participants’ immune responses are lasting, with a follow-up of the participants for one year.
A Phase 3 study will begin this month “to demonstrate the ability of our vaccine to significantly reduce the risk of COVID-19 disease,” Moderna said. She added that she stayed on track “to be able to administer approximately 500 million doses per year, and possibly up to a billion doses per year” as of 2021.
Moderna said last week that it had signed another manufacturing agreement for the investigational vaccine, this time with Spain’s Rovi Pharmaceutical Laboratories. As part of the race for a coronavirus vaccine, drug manufacturers have increased production of their vaccine candidates to speed up the time it would take to distribute a vaccine that works.
New details about the Moderna vaccine candidate emerged when Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about a coronavirus vaccine relatively soon.
“We are in a pretty good place when it comes to a vaccine,” Fauci said at an event Tuesday night. “If things work as we hope they will,” a safe and effective vaccine would be ready for distribution in late 2020, early 2021, she said. “I am cautiously optimistic about it.”
Assuming the timing is correct, companies rushing to develop a vaccine have promised that many doses will be available immediately, Fauci said.
Moderna’s shares have almost quadrupled this year, in contrast to losses of around 1% and 7% for the S&P 500 SPX index,
and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
in the same period
.
