Discover the new stock of vaccines against the coronavirus which is already larger than Inovio and Novavax

There is a new stock of small biotech with a promising coronavirus vaccine now available to U.S. investors. CureVac (NASDAQ: CVAC) proceeded to its initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq stock market last week. And this IPO has raised some eyebrows.

CureVac expected the stock price to be between $ 14 and $ 16. The actual IPO price landed at the high end of that range, but didn’t stay there for long. CureVac stock opened at $ 44 per share on Friday, nearly three times higher than its IPO price.

The biotech stock gave up some of its breathtaking day one gains. However, CureVac still claims a market cap of over $ 12 billion. Here’s what you’ll want to know about the company which is already bigger than rival coronavirus vaccine makers. Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO) and Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX).

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A pioneer of mRNA

Modern (NASDAQ: ARNM) received a lot of attention from investors because of its promising messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, but German biotechnology CureVac was already a pioneer in mRNA research a decade before Moderna was founded.

Scientists have known mRNA for almost six decades. However, in part because mRNA is unstable, they did not immediately realize the therapeutic potential of the molecule. German doctoral student Ingmar Hoerr discovered that mRNA could be delivered directly into tissue and used as a vaccine or therapy.

Hoerr went on to get his doctorate and founded CureVac in 2000 to run with this discovery. CureVac became the first company in the world to successfully use mRNA for therapeutic purposes.

CureVac’s COVID-19 program

In January of this year, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced a collaboration with CureVac to develop a new vaccine against the coronavirus. CEPI, a public-private partnership focused on the fight against infectious diseases, said it would fund up to $ 8.3 million for CureVac to accelerate the development, testing and manufacture of a candidate coronavirus vaccine.

CureVac has made rapid progress. In June, biotechnology was given the green light to begin phase 1 clinical studies of its coronavirus mRNA vaccine in Germany and Belgium. CureVac selected its vaccine candidate from several that the company evaluated in preclinical testing due to the high levels of neutralizing antibodies and T cell responses generated in animal models. Neutralizing antibodies and T cells are immune responses that could be helpful in preventing infection with the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

While CureVac joined an elite group of companies with COVID-19 vaccine candidates in clinical trials, it was well behind several other small biotechs. Inovio launched its Phase 1 study of the DNA vaccine candidate INO-4800 in April. Novavax launched a Phase 1/2 study of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate NVX-CoV2373 in May.

Other pipeline candidates

CureVac isn’t just focusing on developing a vaccine against the coronavirus. The company’s pipeline includes three other candidates in Phase 1 testing and several preclinical programs.

In January, CureVac announced positive interim results from its early stage study of the CV7202 mRNA-based rabies vaccine candidate. All of the study participants who received two doses of the vaccine had neutralizing antibody levels above the threshold recommended by the World Health Organization.

CureVac also offers some mRNA-based anti-cancer immunotherapies in the early development phase. He has partnered with Ludwig Cancer Research and Boehringer Ingelheim on BI 1361849 in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. The company’s CV8102 is being evaluated in a Phase 1 study as a potential treatment for advanced melanoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma (a rare type of cancer that begins in the glands) and cancers of head and neck.

Worth watching

Why is CureVac more valued than Inovio and Novavax despite its delay in the race for the COVID-19 vaccine? Part of the appeal could be that investors appreciate the potential of CureVac’s mRNA technology. It doesn’t hurt that the German government has invested 300 million euros (around $ 356 million) in CureVac, a potential sign that the company could access the larger German market if its vaccine candidate is successful.

My opinion is that CureVac is worth watching, but is not a stock to buy at the moment. It’s not just that the company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate is lagging behind those of Inovio and Novavax. There are also two other COVID-19 mRNA vaccine candidates ahead of CureVac’s candidate – one developed by Moderna and the other developed by BioNTech and Pfizer. This hot German biotech might be bigger than some of its rivals, but it’s not necessarily better than them.