Yahoo Finance Novavax (NVAX) Names John Jacobs as New CEO, Shares Rise
Shares of small-biotech Novavax, Inc. NVAX were up 11.3% on Monday after the company announced that it appointed John C. Jacobs as its new president and chief executive officer (CEO), effective Jan 23, 2023.
The company’s current CEO and president, Stanley C. Erck, retires on Jan 23 but will serve as an advisor for the next 15 months to support the leadership transition.
Novavax’s stock has plunged 90.6% in the past year compared with the industry’s decline of 17.3%.
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John Jacobs previously served as the CEO of Harmony Biosciences since June 2018. He previously held senior positions at Teva Pharmaceuticals.
We note that Stanley Erck led the foundation for NVAX since his appointment as CEO in 2011. It was under his leadership that the company evolved from a clinical-stage organization to a commercial one.
Under Stanley Erck, NVAX got its first commercial product, its COVID-19 vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, which is currently marketed in more than 40 countries across the world.
We note that Novavax has suffered a lot recently, as the company’s stock has been down for some time now. One of the primary reasons for this was the delayed launch of the company’s protein-based COVID-19 vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, compared with its peers like Pfizer PFE, BioNTech BNTX and Moderna MRNA. These companies’ vaccines dominate the COVID vaccine space.
Though the vaccine was granted FDA’s authorization for emergency use for adults in July 2022, most individuals in the country have already been inoculated with an mRNA-based COVID vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
Though the vaccine has also been authorized for use in adolescents and as a third/booster dose in adults, it has been severely falling behind the competition and dominance imposed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines.
Compared with Novavax’s COVID vaccine, mRNA-based vaccines have high efficacy rates. The COVID-19 vaccines developed by MRNA and PFE/BNTX are presently the only COVID-19 vaccines that have received the full approval in the United States.
Novavax is also lagging in the development of Omicron-specific vaccines. This, in a way, makes NVAX vulnerable in terms of gaining a substantial market share in the targeted space.
It remains to be seen how the new CEO navigates Novavax through all challenges related to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Zacks Rank
Novavax currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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