COVID vaccine stocks light up amid fears of new infections in China
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Despite sharp year-to-date declines, shares of leading COVID-19 vaccine developers spiked on Tuesday amid fears that China is facing a new wave of coronavirus infections.
Respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan warned that the country would see as many as 65M weekly COVID cases by the end of June, driven by new Omicron variant XBB, Bloomberg reported citing local media outlet The Paper.
He further notes that XBB, which has been driving a resurgence of cases since late April, will cause 40M weekly infections by the end of May before the case count peaks at 65M a month later.
Nanshan, a household name in the country during the height of the pandemic thanks to his efforts to contain the virus, made the remarks during a presentation at a biotech conference in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
While none of the foreign-made COVID shots are approved in China, leading vaccine makers in the U.S. Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX), and Novavax (NVAX) are among notable gainers on Tuesday. German biotech CureVac N.V. (NASDAQ:CVAC), a developer of a messenger-RNA-based COVID shot, has added ~13%.
China has already greenlighted two XBB-adjusted COVID shots, and three or four such vaccines are expected to be cleared soon. Moderna (MRNA), Pfizer (PFE)/ BioNTech (BNTX), and Novavax (NVAX) are also experimenting with shots updated for XBB.1.5 and other currently dominant strains of COVID.
Last week, citing fast spreading Omicron variants such as XBB.1, an expert panel of the World Health Organization recommended vaccine developers to update their shots to XBB.1.5 or XBB.1.16 strains.
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