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As lives and economies continue to be disrupted at a global scale, pressure mounts to find a COVID-19 vaccine. To date, hundreds of organizations have taken up the challenge of developing a vaccine — but only a handful of candidates have reached Phase 3 trials.
Wednesday, November 18: Pfizer releases final data from its Phase 3 study and amends the efficacy rate of its vaccine, stating its vaccine is 95% effective in preventing COVID-19.
Monday, November 16: Moderna announces its vaccine is 94.5% effective based on late-stage trial data.
Monday, November 9: Pfizer announces an early analysis of its two-dose vaccine is over 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.
As of November 2020, the WHO’s draft landscape of COVID-19 vaccines includes 155 candidates in preclinical evaluation and 47 candidates in clinical trials. Of the 47 vaccines in clinical trials, only 10 have reached Phase 3 trials.
Of the 10 vaccines on the frontline, 4 are being developed in China, 1 is in Russia and several others are in the US or from multinational organizations. Not all are publicly listed, although most (aside from Russian Gamaleya Research Institute) have partnered with a listed company.
Phase 3 allows organizations to begin testing on large numbers of people – typically tens or hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world. It’s the final major hurdle before approval can be granted for licensing.
Unfortunately, this process can’t be rushed. Despite promises made by President Donald Trump of a vaccine being made available in 2020, Phase 3 trials typically take many months — even years — to complete. Only one vaccine is expected to complete its testing by 2021. The remaining vaccines expect to conclude their Phase 3 testing between 2022 and 2023.
Yes. As long as the company developing the vaccine is a publicly-traded entity, investors can back as many COVID-19 vaccine candidates as they like.
As far as stock performance goes, many have seen staggering success. British firm NovaVax has seen its stock price rise 2,400%, while US biotech Moderna has risen 267% and Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics is up 167%.
With so much resting on a cure, it makes sense that investors are bullish. But with so many companies joining the hunt – many of which have only recently listed – it’s not always easy to work out which ones have the most or the least potential.
Below are the 10 publicly listed companies whose vaccine candidates have reached Phase 3 testing.
Note: Study completion dates are estimates made by the researchers at the time they started the study, as published by WHO.
AstraZeneca is a British multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Cambridge. It partnered with Oxford University to begin trials on a COVID-19 vaccine in July this year.
Sinovac Biotech is a Chinese biotechnology company headquartered in Beijing. It expects to begin analyzing final-stage data from human trials this year.
Pfizer Inc is a US pharmaceutical company. It has partnered with German biotech company BioNTech and Chinese pharmaceutical firm Fosun Pharma to trial and manufacture a vaccine candidate.
Sinopharm Group is a Chinese pharmaceuticals company currently trialing two vaccine candidates in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and the Beijing Institute of Biological Products. Both vaccines are in Phase 3 human testing as of September.
Moderna is an American biotechnology company. In April 2020, it received a $483 million grant from the US government to accelerate the development of a coronavirus vaccine in partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In August 2020, it entered Phase 3 human trials.
CanSino Biologics is a Chinese vaccine maker working in partnership with the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology to trial a COVID-19 vaccine. Governments in Mexico, Pakistan and Russia have all agreed to begin Phase 3 testing using CanSino’s vaccine candidate.
American pharmaceutical corporation Johnson & Johnson is the parent company of Janssen Vaccines & Prevention. Janssen began Phase 3 testing of a COVID-19 vaccine in September 2020.
Novavax is a US vaccine development firm headquartered in Maryland. It started Phase 3 human trials in the UK in mid-September.
BioNTech is a German biotechnology company. It has partnered with Chinese pharmaceutical firm Fosun Pharma and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to trial and manufacture a vaccine candidate.
Fosun Pharma is a Chinese pharmaceutical firm. It has partnered with German biotech company BioNTech and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to trial and manufacture a vaccine candidate.
A number of the listed companies working on a COVID-19 cure are from countries outside the US. And most US brokerages only offer access to domestic stock exchanges, like the NYSE and NASDAQ.
That said, some international companies dual-list in the US, like AstraZeneca and Sinovac Biotech. Both can be accessed on the NASDAQ.
But if you’d like to invest in any of the others, be prepared to open an international brokerage account with a platform that offers access to global markets, like Charles Schwab, Fidelity or Interactive Brokers. These brokerages can connect you to overseas exchanges, but consider the platform’s fees and exchange rates before you apply.
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