What happened
Shares of CureVac (CVAC -3.46%) rose as much as 19.1% on Tuesday. The stock closed at $10.36 on Monday, then rose to as high as $12.43 in the late afternoon on Tuesday. It was the third consecutive day the stock was higher than the day before.
Despite the rise, CureVac is down more than 59% over the past year, though it is now up more than 61% over the past three months.
So what
Investors continued to flock to the healthcare stock after the biotech announced late Friday that several of its messenger RNA vaccines were doing well in early trials. It said that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CV0501, was able to boost antibodies against the omicron BA.1 variant in healthy adults and was generally well tolerated.
CureVac also said its Flu-SV-mRNA vaccine was able to boost antibodies against the current flu strain and were as least as successful as a competing flu vaccine. The German company is developing its vaccines as part of a partnership with GSK.
The news was good enough that investors shrugged off Monday's announcement that Alexander Zehnder, the global head of oncology for Sanofi, would replace Frank Haas as the company's CEO, effective April 1. Haas has been CureVac's CEO the past three years.
Now what
The two announcements are a lot to digest for the company's investors. The company's revenue, from various collaborative agreements, was $11.29 million in the third quarter, down 62% year over year, and the company reported a loss of $47.89 million. However, with $529.86 million in cash and promising trial results, more milestone payments are likely on the way from GSK.
