PARIS, Jan. 5 (Reuters) – Biotech group Valneva sold up 12.3% at the start of trading on Wednesday on the Paris Bourse due to growing investor belief that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus could reduce the need for ‘mass vaccination.
The title has since erased its losses and at 11:10 am, the title advanced 3.68% to 18.29 euros. But for the week as a whole, he’s showing a loss of over 25% for the moment.
Valneva has gained more than 200% in 2021 and 2020 on the back of hopes for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
But with studies in several countries suggesting that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is less dangerous than other strains of SARS-CoV-2, the need for vaccines will become less important.
“The fall in price appears to be primarily driven by retail investors who believe there won’t be a need for a new vaccination campaign after the Omicron wave, which is wrong in my opinion,” said an analyst based at Paris.
Such a development would call into question optimistic scenarios regarding future sales of COVID-19 vaccines.
“Valneva suffers from a technical and fundamental bearish mix: technically, like many so-called” COVID “stocks [celles profitant de la pandémie pour accroître leur chiffre d’affaires, ndlr], major objectives had recently been achieved and the wait-and-see attitude was at its height. Fundamentally, the group could suffer from the adoption of a strategy to use Omicron as an immunity vector, making the Valneva vaccine less useful, “said Nicolas Chéron, strategist at Zonebourse.
He added that the title reached a major support at 15.50 euros in the morning, which could explain its slight rebound.
(Report Anait Miridzhanian, Benoit Van Overstraeten and Blandine Hénault, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Blandine Hénault)