What happened
Shares of Novavax (NVAX 2.56%) were 9.9% lower as of 10:31 a.m. EST on Tuesday. The decline came after the company provided its fourth-quarter update following the market close on Monday.
Novavax reported revenue of $279.7 million, the highest total in the company's history. However, its net loss of $177.6 million was the worst ever for the biotech. Both top and bottom lines missed Wall Street estimates.
Some investors might have also been hoping that Novavax would have great news about the prospects of filing for emergency use authorization (EUA) for COVID-19 vaccine NVX-CoV2373 based on U.K. trial data. But the company only said that it's continuing to talk with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and plans to file for EUA sometime in the second quarter.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Today's move for the biotech stock is really more noise than anything else. It doesn't matter very much that Novavax missed analyst estimates at this point. The company's financial position will probably improve dramatically before long.
It's understandable why some investors might be disappointed that there isn't already a clear path to U.S. EUA for NVX-CoV2373. However, even if the FDA doesn't allow Novavax to submit for EUA based on its U.K. trial data, the company's U.S. and Mexico clinical study is expected to wrap up relatively soon.
Now what
Things should start to get quite interesting for Novavax. The company expects to file for EUA of NVX-CoV2373 in the U.K. in early Q2. A U.S. filing won't be too far behind. Novavax is also testing a six-month booster dose and vaccine candidates targeting new coronavirus variants. Today's drop could very quickly be forgotten.
