Coronavirus vaccine hopes inflate bubble

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

NEW YORK  – Every person on the planet will be a winner if a good vaccine against the coronavirus emerges, but not every company seeking one will. Over a dozen listed biotechnology groups are trying. The market capitalization of five of them is up over eightfold, adding more than $50 billion of value since January. That’s excessive even if they capture the entire potential benefit. And with over 150 competing efforts, according to the World Health Organization, it’s looking like a bubble.

Sales will continue after that: Immunity may wear off, and newborns will need shots. Ongoing revenue could be somewhere between $2 billion and $25 billion annually, per Morgan Stanley. The lower end is more likely. Immunity to other coronaviruses can last years. Moreover, it’s unlikely producers could raise prices much once a vaccine becomes a standard health requirement. Assume that boils down to $4 billion a year. As a gut check, the vaccine market as a whole is worth something over $35 billion a year, Bernstein reckons. It’s reasonable that Covid-19, by then just one preventable disease among many, might account for around 10% of that figure.

Big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Merck dominate the vaccine market. On average, they are valued at less than 5 times estimated revenue over the next 12 months, according to Refinitiv data. That suggests the ongoing coronavirus vaccine sales could be worth some $20 billion in present value terms, and under $25 billion adding the initial profit bump.

Yet Moderna, Vir Biotechnology, BioNTech, CanSino Biologics and Novavax – just a sample of the contenders – have seen their combined market capitalization rise more than eightfold since January, adding a combined $50 billion or so in value. Each set of shareholders may be gambling on their firm being the sole winner – or being snapped up by a bigger suitor. More likely, investors are lunging for every shred of hope they see.

CONTEXT NEWS

– Early data on three potential vaccines against the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 were released on July 20.

– AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s modified cold virus induced an immune response in all study participants who received two doses. Chinese firm CanSino Biologics, using a similar strategy, also showed immune responses in most recipients. Both studies, published in the Lancet, also demonstrated acceptable safety.

– German biotech BioNTech and Pfizer said recipients of their vaccine, which uses messenger RNA, produced neutralizing antibodies to the virus after two doses.

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

(Editing by Richard Beales and Amanda Gomez) ((robert.cyran@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: robert.cyran.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))