Target sprint in the vaccine race [premium]

Never before has the world followed the development of a new vaccine with such fascination. The race for the Covid vaccine is now entering the home straight. On Monday, the US pharmaceutical company Moderna applied to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as the first company to approve its CoV vaccine in the EU. The German pharmaceutical company Biontech and its US partner Pfizer followed on Tuesday with an application for the European market. On Monday, Moderna applied for emergency approval for the US market in parallel, while Biontech / Pfizer did this for their candidate the week before – which also draws investors' attention to the shares of those suppliers, producers and logisticians who benefit from vaccine production .

Vaccine in record time

It is only a matter of a few weeks before the first vaccine is approved and the starting signal for major vaccination campaigns around the world is given. If the vaccine is actually approved in the next few weeks, it would be a pharmaceutical sensation in terms of speed.

On January 10, 2020, the genome of SARS-CoV-2 was published. Less than a month later, Moderna made the first batch of the vaccine. On February 24, the pharmaceutical company delivered the first vaccines to the US National Health Institute for use in their clinical phase 1 study. In mid-November, Moderna and Biontech / Pfizer independently reported the effectiveness of their vaccines of around 95 percent.

Share prices explode

The companies' breakthrough also affects their market values. The Biontech share rose by more than 400 percent in the past twelve months. The Moderna share also rose by more than 65 percent last week. The breakthrough of Moderna is also remarkable in that the US company has not yet brought a single vaccine to market, explains Alexander Herzog, Secretary General of the Austrian Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Astra-Zeneca, a third pharmaceutical company, published positive interim results of its vaccine study in November. In addition, eleven other candidates are currently in the final phase of their admissions studies. Almost 50 other candidates are also in clinical testing. “We are assuming that around 20 vaccines will be approved by the end of next year,” explains Herzog. This is also necessary in order to serve the global need for vaccination and to be able to respond to possible different tolerances.

Admission this year?

The EMA will now carefully examine the submitted vaccines. A special meeting on the vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer is planned for December 29th at the latest. Such a meeting on the Moderna active ingredient should follow no later than January 12th. In the event of a positive vote, the Commission would make a decision on market approval in the EU within a few days.