What happened
Shares of several COVID-19 vaccine makers were sinking on Tuesday morning. Dynavax Technologies (DVAX -1.84%) stock was down 6.3% as of 11:26 a.m. EDT, while shares of Novavax (NVAX -4.49%) and Vaxart (VXRT 0.11%) were falling 7.8% and 10.6%, respectively.
None of these three companies announced any news today. The declines for the biotech stocks appear to merely be run-of-the-mill volatility on a day when the overall stock market was down.
So what
The best thing that investors can do when stocks fall for no apparent reason is... nothing. Instead, continue to focus on the prospects for the underlying businesses behind those stocks.
Image source: Getty Images.
Dynavax, for example, already has a product on the market. Sales of its Heplisav-B hepatitis B vaccine were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Dynavax plans to launch the vaccine in Europe this year. It also has a strong growth driver on its hands with the CpG 1019 adjuvant.
Novavax just announced overwhelmingly positive results from a late-stage study conducted in the U.S. and Mexico for its COVID-19 vaccine, NVX-CoV2373. The experimental vaccine achieved an overall efficacy of 90.4% with 100% protection against moderate and severe COVID-19.
Vaxart is evaluating its lead oral COVID-19 vaccine candidate in clinical testing with plans to advance a couple of variant-specific candidates into clinical studies this year. The company also has early-stage clinical studies under way for its oral norovirus vaccine.
Now what
Any or all of these three stocks could bounce back as quickly as they have fallen. Novavax appears to be in the strongest position with the company planning to file for regulatory authorizations of its COVID-19 vaccine in the third quarter of 2021. Dynavax and Vaxart also have potential catalysts on the way, though.
Dynavax is preparing to launch Heplisav-B in the European Union in the fourth quarter. Several of its partners expect to report clinical results for experimental COVID-19 vaccines using CpG 1018 as an adjuvant this year. Vaxart plans to advance its oral COVID-19 vaccine candidate into phase 2 testing within the next few months and begin phase 1/2 studies of its variant-specific candidates in the third quarter.
