With both vaccines and therapies for COVID-19 gradually becoming widely available, investors have several options for choosing where to invest in this sector. In this Motley Fool Live segment from "The Pharma & Biotech Show," recorded on March 23, Fool.com contributors Taylor Carmichael and Keith Speights discuss some of the key factors to consider when choosing COVID stocks.
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Taylor Carmichael: Do you have a favorite in vaccines versus therapies in the COVID sector? In terms of which of those two sectors you think is going to be the big money going forward. Do you do you have any thoughts in that regard?
Keith Speights: Not really. I think if what you are saying is correct and I agree with you. I agree that COVID will transition from and pandemic to endemic. It's not going away. I think it's going to be just a fact of life like the flu, and so that being the case, I think there's going to be a market for vaccines and there's going to be a market for therapies just as we see with the flu. I wouldn't say I lean one toward the other. In fact, if I had to say what my personal take is, why not go with Pfizer (PFE 0.55%) which has both? [laughs] Pfizer has a vaccine, it has an oral pill. It's cheap. It has lots of other drugs too.
Taylor Carmichael: I'm not a mega-cap guy. I'm more of a small-cap guy, but yeah, I get you on Pfizer. It's fascinating to me because the vaccines are really cheap on an individual basis. Whereas the therapies like [inaudible] therapy runs, I think $2,000. The therapies are for people that have got COVID, they're going to die. The therapy, hopefully will save their life and it's an expensive therapy, and so the government has been stockpiling those. It's a question, I guess the way to think about it, where is the government going to be buying? Are they going to be buying a lot more vaccines? Are they going to be buying a lot more therapies? Thinking about all those people who are not vaccinated and refuse to get vaccinated for whatever reason, we're going to need therapies for those people.
Keith Speights: I think you'll see less resistance to therapies versus vaccines.
Taylor Carmichael: Yeah, because you're about to die.
Keith Speights: Even if you're not about to die. If you're sick, you're going to take what the doctor prescribes for you.
Taylor Carmichael: Here in the hospital. COVID is an ugly thing. I think it's fascinating. Because two years ago I would say, Novavax (NVAX 3.54%), they have the whole potential world as their market opportunity. For people that actually have COVID and they're in hospital and might die, that's a much tinier market, but they're charging a lot more for the drugs. I used to be more bullish on vaccines than anything, but now I've upped the therapy analysis to where I think both of these sectors are going to be really profitable for Fools going forward.
