Coronavirus Vaccine Race Intensifies: 3 Stocks in Focus

As the coronavirus pandemic deepens, resulting in more and more fatalities with each passing day, the race to develop treatments to combat this contagious disease intensifies.

The outbreak has created a havoc worldwide. There are more than 200,000 people infected in the United States and the death toll has gone up to 5,000.

Currently, there are no FDA-approved treatments for the severe illness caused by SARS-CoV-2. The pharma/biotech companies are running a race against time to successfully develop vaccines to combat this disease. Given the alarming levels of spread and severity, some approved drugs or pipeline candidates are being tested to see if they are effective in treating the infected patients.

While the need to cure the large numbers of infected patients is evident, there is an equal urgency to develop a vaccine for the prevention of the spread.  President Trump reportedly wants to speed up the approvals of vaccines and treatments to fight the pandemic.

Moreover, the efforts to develop a vaccine to combat this deadly virus have accelerated in the last couple of weeks.  

Here, we take a look at companies, which are currently leading the race of developing vaccines for this highly infectious disease.

Pharma giant Johnson & Johnson JNJ has given some hope to people worldwide as it recently announced that it has selected a lead vaccine candidate for COVID-19.  It expects to initiate a phase I study on the candidate in September 2020 under an accelerated timeline. Safety and efficacy data from the study are expected by the end of the year, based on which the company expects a vaccine to be available for emergency use in early 2021. The company initiated the process to identify compounds with antiviral activity against 2019-nCoV in January. Meanwhile, the company has also identified two backup candidates, apart from the lead COVID-19 candidate. J&J is using its subsidiary, Janssen’s technologies, which will help it rapidly upscale production of the vaccine candidate. The company is also rapidly upscaling its manufacturing facilities with the goal of supplying more than a billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine globally.

Sanofi SNY has recently collaborated with Translate Bio TBIO to jointly develop a novel messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine for COVID-19. The companies will jointly investigate multiple candidates with the goal of advancing an efficacious and safe SARS-CoV-2 vaccine to clinical development. This is the second collaboration by the company in its efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Earlier, Sanofi announced a collaboration with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to advance a novel COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The agreement calls for the development of a recombinant, protein-based vaccine candidate against COVID-19.

Last month, clinical-stage biotechnology company, Moderna, Inc., MRNA, announced that the first participant has been dosed in the phase I study of its mRNA vaccine (mRNA-1273) against SARS-CoV-2. This phase I study is being conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under its own Investigational New Drug (IND) application. Moderna is actively preparing for a potential phase II study under the IND to build on data from the ongoing phase 1 study being conducted by the NIH.

Moderna currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Apart from these companies, many other companies have joined the bandwagon. Ology Bioservices Inc. and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. are working together to manufacture Inovio's DNA vaccine for prevention from COVID-19. The Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded Ology Bioservices with a contract, valued at $11.9 million. Quite a few others like Novavax, Inc. NVAX are developing vaccines to address the disease.

While the vaccines will need some time to be tested, investors will keep an eye on these companies as the pandemic is unlikely to die out soon.

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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Sanofi (SNY) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Moderna, Inc. (MRNA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Translate Bio, Inc. (TBIO) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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