What happened
On Wednesday, vaccine specialist Novavax (NVAX +2.31%) had some positive news to report. But this obviously wasn't positive enough for investors, who were pushing the stock down by just over 2% in mid-afternoon trading on Wednesday -- in contrast to the broader equities market, which was basically moving sideways.
So what
Novavax's news is that the company has formally applied for interim authorization of its NVX-CoV2373 (Covaxin) coronavirus vaccine from the Singapore Health Sciences Authority. This follows recent similar filings throughout the world in such jurisdictions as the U.K., Canada, and the European Union (EU). Closer to Singapore, Covaxin has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Image source: Getty Images.
"Each additional market submission marks further progress in delivering our vaccine to the world, which we believe may help address major obstacles to global vaccination, including global distribution challenges and vaccine hesitancy," Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a statement.
Covaxin has proven to be very efficacious in late-stage clinical testing. One major advantage it has over the current global coronavirus vaccine favorites, Pfizer and BioNTech's Comirnaty and Moderna's mRNA-1273 (or Spikevax), is that it can be refrigerated for as long as two years. Both Comirnaty and mRNA-1273 last one month.
Now what
But with each day that passes, rival vaccines become more entrenched and Novavax gets left further behind. The Singapore submission is certainly encouraging, however it's a small nation and the important monster markets like the U.S. and the EU are currently getting other jabs into their citizens' arms.
Most likely, investors were reminded of that with the biotech company's latest news; they would have preferred movement on, say, the U.S. regulatory front instead.
