Thursday, July 01, 2021
Minus 18 percent – was that it?
Investors punish Curevac
By Diana Dittmer
Fears come true: Curevac’s vaccine proves to be a disappointment. The federal government is now planning without the Tübingen company. Nevertheless, a spark of hope is still traded on the stock exchange. “The share is becoming a plaything for speculators,” warns ntv stock market reporter Corinna Wohlfeil.
At Curevac, investors are running away again in droves. After the disappointing study results of the corona vaccine candidate from mid-June were confirmed, the shares of the biotech company are plummeting 18 percent. The eagerly awaited final analysis makes it clear: At just 48 percent, the effectiveness of this vaccine is too low.
As feared, the mRNA vaccine from the Tübingen-based company has proven to be of little use. This is a bitter disappointment, because the hopes were high and the vaccine was already part of the federal government’s campaign. The setback is almost tragic, especially because Curevac, to a certain extent, invented mRNA technology.
But the effectiveness is too low to build on the vaccine. This applies both to politics, which are no longer planning the vaccine for 2022, and to the stock market. After a phase between hope and fear since mid-June, the reaction of investors is now, as expected, violent. Curevac shares have been riding a roller coaster for weeks. It had bottomed out after the moment of shock when the interim analysis data were published. Investors punished the paper with a price drop to below 40 euros. Then things went up again.
“Share becomes a plaything for speculators”
Today the price is above the mark at around 54 euros. What makes observers think is the range of fluctuation. In the morning it was between minus ten to minus 20 percent and thus may not bode well. “The share is becoming a plaything for speculators,” says ntv stock market reporter Corinna Wohlfeil. What drives investors is unclear: One reason for betting on rising prices could be the indication in the final evaluation that there is a “significant protective effect” for study participants between 18 and 60 years of age. However, this is the group that is less at risk from a corona infection anyway.
Specifically, the Curevac analysis states that in this age group an effectiveness of at least 53 percent against illness of any degree of severity and of 77 percent against moderate and severe disease progression was determined. The vaccinated study participants at this age were fully protected from hospitalization or death – there were six cases in the control group that received a placebo. In the case of study participants over 60 years of age, who represented nine percent of the cases examined, no statistically clear determination of the effectiveness was possible.
The Federal Ministry of Health has made its decision and called for a withdrawal. Regardless, Curevac remains optimistic. There is an ongoing exchange with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the continuation of the approval process for the vaccine. It’s a weak hope. Because CEO Franz-Werner Haas himself recently said that Curevac had to achieve an effectiveness of 50 percent for an application for approval.
A hot bet
It is probably not enough to iron out the loss of confidence in the stock market. The mRNA competitors Biontech and Moderna are already way ahead with their successes: The Biontech price increased 230 percent over the year, Moderna even more than 270 percent. In both cases, the vaccines are significantly more effective. And even if Curevac should receive approval, the sales success is rather questionable. After all, even competition that is not yet on the market is a good step further. The vaccine from the US pharmaceutical company Novavax, for example, which has not yet been approved, is said to show a significantly higher effectiveness of around 90 percent in a comparable clinical study.
But Curevac may still have an iron in the fire: A second-generation mRNA vaccine is still being developed in cooperation with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). There will be data on this in the coming year. But things could also get worse for Curevac. The German financial regulator Bafin is currently examining whether there are any suspicions of market abuse. The reason is the price movements of the share after the first disappointing interim results. Someone from the companies Curevac or Bayer could possibly have used their insider knowledge and sold shares in good time. Bayer is a cooperation partner of Curevac. In view of the overall situation, investors should be more cautious.
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