Challenges expected for Novavax' COVID-19 vaccine in USA

US vaccines developer Novavax (Nasdaq: NVAX) further demonstrated excellent results from its pivotal PREVENT-19 vaccine trial, with its COVID-19 vaccine, NVX-CoV2373. Despite this positive data, it will likely see very little uptake in the USA, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company GlobalData.

“Novavax’s PREVENT-19 trial enrolled close to 30,000 participants across 119 sites in the US and Mexico. However, vaccination rates are decreasing in the US while mRNA vaccine supplies remain plentiful. It is likely that a large amount of the first doses will go to other countries that have a more urgent need for vaccines. The use of NVX-CoV2373 outside of the US can serve as a great alternative to adenovirus vector-based vaccines due to its easier storage requirements and higher efficacy levels,” commented GlobalData pharma analyst Nancy Jaser.

Results show that NVX-CoV2373 was 93% effective against the predominant SARS-CoV-2 variants in the US and Mexico trial population including B.1.1.7 (Alpha). 54 out of the 77 subjects who contracted COVID-19 were sequenced in this trial, which is a high percentage relative to many other vaccine trials. Two cases were found to be caused by variant B.1.351 (Beta), 35 by Alpha, while the others are undisclosed.