Blue Water Vaccines stock jumps on demand for monkeypox treatments

Yahoo Finance Video
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After announcing that it plans to potentially develop a monkeypox vaccine, Blue Water Vaccines shares are surging.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: And my play, BWV. Blue Water Vaccines. News today that it plans to potentially develop a monkeypox shot. The Ohio-based company said it would make the vaccine using its, quote, "norovirus shell and protrusion virus-like particle platform." Monkeypox has been declared a public emergency by both the FDA and World Health Organization. Total cases in the US are now approaching 13,000, according to the CDC. Worldwide, cases jumped 20% in the last week to 35,000. That's in more than 90 countries to date.

Shares had been down nearly 90% this year, but have rocketed on this news. They were up almost 200% at one point, still up 160% on this news. And it's been an interesting dichotomy with the story of monkeypox, largely a story among the single city dwellers, whereas the married suburban part of this country seems to be ignoring it entirely. The numbers are getting hard to ignore.

SEANA SMITH: The numbers are getting very hard to ignore. We're also starting to see some backlash here against the Biden administration for the government's handling of monkeypox. So far, the criticism there being that they have been very slow to respond to this. I think, obviously, this is good news if they, in fact, can come through with a shot for monkeypox.

We've been talking about the fact that people who even want to get the vaccine, how they can't get their hands on one. It's very hard to make some of those appointments. So certainly, we're seeing the reaction in this stock today. Obviously, it could be a huge move for this company. And this is a space here, Jared, when we talk about the outbreak of monkeypox, that we certainly do need some new leadership, and it would welcome some more vaccines.

JARED BLIKRE: Yeah, there are echoes here of the pandemic, of course, a much-- on a much smaller scale. When the monkeypox first came out, I think we were all kind of chuckling-- oh, this is a curiosity. But nevertheless, it's morphed into something serious. And when it eventually-- if and when it eventually spreads to the suburbs, well, we've seen this movie before. It gets very serious. So glad that we have some incremental moves in that direction, guys.