Wednesday December 09, 2020
Course fireworks for corona killers
How much air does Curevac have upwards?
By Diana Dittmer
The vaccine manufacturer Curevac from Tübingen succeeded in the most impressive IPO of a German company in a long time. Since November alone, the share price has risen 180 percent. The vaccine rally is in full swing. However, the papers are not a sure-fire success.
The Curevac share has shown a full 180 percent plus since the beginning of November. After Biontech and Moderna, the Tübingen vaccine manufacturer is now the third in the league to offer the magical one 100 euro mark cracked Has. The vaccine rally is in full swing. Every positive news is frenetically celebrated on the market. However, the high ratings raise questions. How thin is the air Is it already too much advance praise? Is the big bang looming?
In part, prices are simply being driven by investors' sheer fear of missing out. That alone should urge caution. Trading apps like Robinhood, which make it easy for retail investors to quickly and easily invest in stocks, fuel this hype. This new group of investors is living out its euphoria especially among the young biotech companies with small product portfolios. Established pharmaceutical companies that are more broadly positioned, on the other hand, lead a wallflower existence. The rally is already reminiscent of that of tech stocks in the USA, where absurd valuations have also come about in the past.
The share of the US biotech giant Moderna has risen 800 percent since January. At the Mainz-based company Biontech, which is working on a vaccine together with Pfizer, investors' hope was reflected with a plus of 350 percent. How much the new growth titles in the pharmaceutical industry are given advance praise can be seen in the vaccine latecomer Curevac.
While Biontech and Moderna have already completed their mass tests and have applied for approvals for their vaccines, Curevac has yet to submit the test results of its vaccine candidate CVnCOV. As it is said, it should be ready in early 2021. It may then be possible to vaccinate in March, as Curevac founder Ingmar Hoerr announced in an interview with ZDF. "We won't be the first," admits the biologist. You hardly notice this in the Curevac share.
Hoerr also discussed the cost of vaccine development. The latest figures from Curevac show how much drug research is making an impact. Sales increased fivefold in the past quarter on an annual basis. But Curecac owes this primarily to a payment from its pharmaceutical partner GlaxoSmithKline. The bottom line is that the numbers are deep in the red, the net loss has doubled.
Competence and long-term investors
But other things are in focus for investors: The order situation is right. The EU has already ordered 225 million cans with an option for another 180 million. The production network exists, contract manufacturers such as Wacker Chemie are available.
Hoerr also enjoys the highest reputation in the industry. The Curevac founder is no less than the discoverer of the new mRNA technology on which the corona vaccines of the pharmaceutical newcomers are based. The groundbreaking discovery he made during his PhD student days was that people were vaccinated with information, not drugs. Hoerr also has an ace up its sleeve: with majority owner and SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp, who has invested 1.5 billion euros in biotech startups like Curevac, as well as Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Tesla boss Elon Musk, he has top-class investors and cooperation partners at the side who pursue long-term interests.
The deep red numbers are therefore not a cause for concern, as he says: "It's great that we have people with stamina. A venture capitalist always wants to get profits back quickly, that doesn't work that way. After five years they won't get a return. of investment ", says Ingmar Hoerr in an interview with ZDF. With such a revolutionary technology, it simply takes time.
And there is another unique selling point that is fueling investor fantasies: The Curevac vaccine is much easier to use compared to competing products. Storage and transport of the Curevac vaccine do not have to take place at 70 degrees below zero, they can be done at normal refrigerator temperatures. Curevac boss Franz-Werner Haas also promises an immune reaction "similar to that after a natural infection".
Will everything turn out as hoped?
Nevertheless, there are still uncertainties: Dozens of vaccine manufacturers will not make it to market. Some will have a hard time getting their money back. Especially since it should not be long before there will be cheaper imitation vaccines. And it looks like there is still another factor of uncertainty that cannot be assessed at the moment. "Surveys show that 40 percent of people who previously said they wanted to be vaccinated are now more reluctant and want to wait and see," says ntv stock market expert Katja Dofel.
It usually takes ten years to test for approval. For the corona vaccines, the average is one year. Many worry about possible side effects. So the question is: will the vaccine catch on across the board? Any setback, any disappointment could also have an impact on prices very quickly.
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