Analyst More Than Quadruples Novavax Target After Sign That RSV Vaccine Works

This morning, B. Riley FBR analyst George Zavoico raised his price target for Novavax (NVAX) nearly five-fold to $10 after the company announced more details about an informational analysis of Prepare, an ongoing Phase 3 trial of an RSV F vaccine for maternal immunization to protect newborn infants. This target hike comes just five days after Zavoico started coverage of the stock with a Buy rating and a $2.25 price target.

PREPARE UPDATE: In slides accompanying a presentation by the company at the 36th annual JPMorgan Healthcare conference, Novavax provided an update on the status of its Phase 3 Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccine for Infants Via Maternal Immunization clinical trial, dubbed the “Prepare” trial. Novavax pointed out that an informational analysis was performed in the fourth quarter of 2017, and targeted an efficacy threshold against the primary endpoint at day 90 of more than 40%. In December, the Data Safety Monitoring Board statistician performed an unblinded analysis and communicated that the RSV F vaccine “successfully met” the criteria, the company highlighted in the slides. Importantly, Novavax stated that the informational analysis indicated that its RSV F Vaccine is efficacious and that Phase 3 enrollment should yield pivotal efficacy data by the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019. The company expects it to be the first licensed RSV vaccine, with an estimated global peak revenue of over $1.5B.

INCREASING CONFIDENCE IN PREPARE TRIAL: Just five days after initiating coverage of the stock, B. Riley FBR analyst George Zavoico raised his price target for Novavax to $10 from $2.25, while reiterating a Buy rating on the shares. The target increase comes after the company announced more details about the informational analysis of Prepare. The analyst noted that he has learned that the objective of the analysis allowed by the FDA was to determine if the trial vaccine efficacy was greater than 45%, a threshold that he thinks will translate into a successful Phase 3 trial and a commercially viable vaccine. Overall, Zavoico told investors that the results increase his confidence in a successful outcome of the Prepare trial.