(GSK) Archives - Page 9 of 12 - Mad Hedge Fund Trader

AstraZeneca’s Bump in the Road

Moderna (MRNA) was the first company to test its COVID-19 vaccine candidate on humans. However, AstraZeneca (AZN) and its partner Oxford University have been setting out the most aggressive timelines.

In fact, AstraZeneca sealed deals with the promise of delivering vaccine results as early as September.

The possibility of that happening, already precariously hanging by a thread, was completely eliminated earlier this month when the company halted its COVID-19 vaccine program after a subject showed severe adverse reactions.

Needless to say, news of AstraZeneca’s suspension of its late-stage 30,000-patient trial rattled the markets.

However, it looks like investors are simply shaking off the panic as other COVID-19 vaccine stocks continue to gain momentum.

In fact, even AstraZeneca only suffered a 2% slide following the announcement.

Shares of its COVID-19 rivals Pfizer (PFE), Merck (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) went up 1% each, while GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi (SNY) rose 2%.

Bigger jumps were seen in smaller biotechnology companies with Moderna and CureVac (CVAC) being 4% higher and Novavax (NVAX), Inovio (INO), and BioNTech (BNTX) climbing 6%.

Still, a lot is riding on AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate. The company has secured more contracts compared to its rivals.

To date, AstraZeneca has disclosed deals to supply roughly 3 billion doses to different nations including the US, Europe, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Latin America, and even China.

Its leading competitors, Moderna and Pfizer, have only managed to commit a small fraction of AstraZeneca’s supply.

Although AstraZeneca’s decision would cause some delay, experts assure the public that this is a normal occurrence in the vaccine development process.

It is actually a good sign especially given the fast-tracked timelines for the COVID-19 programs.

This voluntary pause from AstraZeneca means that the standards for vaccine development are still stringently followed by the developers despite the tight deadlines and competition.

A third-party safety board was already assigned to review AstraZeneca’s case, with the company expecting results in the next weeks.

So, what happens next?

There are few possible outcomes of this scenario. The ideal result would be for the board to find that the adverse effect has no connection to AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate.

If this is the case, then the company can restart trials as early as next week. Although it obviously suffered a delay, AstraZeneca says it is still on track and can submit efficacy data before 2020 ends.

If everything else falls into place and from a manufacturing standpoint, AstraZeneca can still deliver a vaccine by the end of the year or early 2021.

If the adverse effect is caused by the vaccine though, then it could spell trouble not only for AstraZeneca but also for some of its rivals using the same technology.

The company utilized a neutralized virus for delivery, which is the same method used by other developers like Johnson & Johnson.

In comparison, Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccine candidates used a new technique involving messenger-RNA. This method stimulates a person’s body to produce a protein, which can help build immunity against the coronavirus.

The worst-case scenario is that if the problem turns out to be an immune reaction to the coronavirus fragments.

This would set back all the COVID-19 vaccine developers because it is the common element among them.

Although the COVID-19 vaccine candidate is a high-value product, AstraZeneca remains poised to prosper no matter what happens as a result of the pandemic or even the overall financial market.

The company is consistently generating strong revenue growth. In particular, its cancer lineup of non-small cell lung cancer treatments Tagriss and Imfinzi, and ovarian cancer therapy Lynparza have been showing remarkable momentum amid the crisis.

However, it is AstraZeneca’s pipeline that makes this stock impressive.

So far, the company has 166 programs that are under clinical development. Of those, 24 have already reached late-stage trials.

What’s even more exciting is that 9 of these late-stage studies are for new drugs. Meanwhile, the remaining 15 are additional approvals for expanded indications of existing products.

AstraZeneca offers one of the most promising product portfolios and clinical pipelines in the healthcare and biotechnology industry. It also provides impressive shareholder reward programs.

Most importantly, this single COVID-19 vaccine candidate is definitely not a make-or-break type of development for the company – not by a very long shot.

Therefore, bargain hunters may want to capitalize on AstraZeneca’s shares on any weakness resulting from this trial suspension.

It's Crunch Time for COVID-19 Vaccine Developers

Biotech Letter

Mark your calendars because the world is about to find out whether the leading candidates of the COVID-19 vaccine race will be effective as early as October.

Other than saving lives in this pandemic, also hinged on the results is over $100 billion in investors’ money – an amount that reflects just how much value the stock market is putting on the COVID-19 vaccine candidates under development today.

One of the leading companies in the race is Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

With a market capitalization of almost $400 billion, many believe that this biopharmaceutical giant will soon be hailed as the king of the coronavirus stock list.

What we know so far is that JNJ’s subsidiary, called Janssen Vaccines, is set to launch a massive-scale Phase 3 study of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, A26.COV2-S, this September.

The company’s study, which will be randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled, is expected to involve approximately 60,000 participants suffering from moderate to severe cases of COVID-19.

The move to include 60,000 participants is seen as a competitive advantage for JNJ because this is double the usual late-stage volunteer number.

For comparison, Moderna’s (MRNA) mRNA-1273 as well as Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech’s (BNTX) BNT162b2 will only target a maximum of 30,000 patients each in their trials.

On top of the more expansive trial coverage, JNJ has another advantage that could help it pull ahead of the pack.

During the preclinical testing of Ad26.COV2-S on primates, the vaccine candidate showed that a single dose could be enough to fight off the virus.

In contrast, the candidates from other COVID-19 vaccine developers like AstraZeneca (AZN), Pfizer, and Moderna require two doses to trigger a similar response.

While the well-being of every man, woman, and child hangs on the success of the COVID-19 trials, concerns have been raised that the assessment for these candidates might be compromised because of the upcoming US presidential election.

However, the leading COVID-19 developers assured people that it won’t be the case.

Apart from JNJ, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, other vaccine makers like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi (SNY), and Regeneron (REGN) plan to issue statements that no candidate will be submitted without extensive data on its efficacy and safety.

Most investors are focused on the COVID-19 stocks these days, and who can blame them?

Sales of the vaccines in 2021 alone could reach $20 billion per company. This is massive profit even for Big Pharma standards.

In fact, this amount is higher than the projected sales of today’s current top-selling drug, Humira from AbbVie (ABBV), which is expected to clock roughly $19.6 billion in the same period.

However, the COVID-19 vaccines will only be profitable for as long as there is a pandemic. If this disease becomes a non-recurring sickness, then the vaccines will no longer be as profitable in the long run.

This is why it’s crucial to review the core operations of a company and determine its capacity to keep generating revenue and profits while also maintaining a strong balance sheet and returning value to its investors.

JNJ is a great example of this type of business.

Outside its COVID-19 efforts, the company has been diversifying its portfolio. Its latest move is the $6.5 billion acquisition of Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), marking the biopharmaceutical titan’s expansion into the immunology sector.

One of the most significant assets JNJ acquired from this deal is Nipocalimab, which is an incredibly promising first-in-class autoimmune disease treatment.

This drug could be the answer to rare and life-threatening blood disorders, such as hemolytic disease, which affects newborns and babies. To date, there are roughly 195 million individuals suffering from this condition worldwide.

Throughout its history, JNJ has proven itself to be a stable company even in the most unstable market conditions.

It has a reliable growth record and a healthy cash flow, which would be valuable in acquiring bolt-on companies, creating new drugs, and boosting the dividend every year.

JNJ has managed to increase dividends annually for 58 years now, with its most recent dividend raise reaching 6.3% just last April. Its stock currently yields 2.7%.

More importantly, JNJ offers an impressive biotechnology pipeline. With an incredible history of over 130 years, this stock is definitely one for keeps.

August 18, 2020

Biotech Letter

Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
August 18, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(MORE DARK HORSES IN THE COVID-19 VACCINE RACE)
(CVAC), (MRNA), (BNTX), (PFE), (GSK), (AZN), (JNJ), (NVAX)

June 25, 2020

Biotech Letter

Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
June 25, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(COVID-19’s STEROID ROADBLOCK)
GILD), (MRNA), (INO), (SVA), (AZN), (MRK), (SNY), (GSK), (NVAX), (JNJ), (PFE), (LLY), (REGN)

Covid-19’s Steroid Roadblock

Biotech Letter

Science rarely gets communicated accurately.

Earlier this month, UK health experts said that an existing drug called dexamethasone can cut the risk of death among patients suffering from severe COVID-19.

According to the Oxford University researchers, dexamethasone lowered the COVID-19 deaths by roughly 35% among patients in ventilators and 20% among those who required oxygen.

The experts clarified that this means for every 8 patients on ventilators treated with dexamethasone, they were able to save 1 life.

In response to this study, here’s the gist of what most news outlets reported: “Miracle COVID-19 cure discovered!”

Now, health experts are scrambling to get their voices heard over the loud pronouncements of opportunistic businesses heralding the sale of this life-saving drug.

Days after the UK experts released this information, government authorities have issued warning after warning against stockpiling this drug for personal consumption.

Up until today, they’re still convincing people that dexamethasone is not a community drug and should only be used if prescribed by a medical professional.

That is, dexamethasone is a treatment for the sickest of the sick and should not be used as a preventive treatment.

Here’s how it works, and why it can only be used in severe cases.

The dexamethasone dampens the immune system for patients in ventilators or oxygen. This is effective because in severe cases, the immune system turns against the body, specifically the lungs, causing deaths. That’s what dexamethasone addresses.

This means that dexamethasone cannot be used on mild COVID-19 cases. Patients classified under this category still have relatively healthy immune systems, which would of course be more preferable tools to fight the disease.

Although there has been a misconception about this treatment, this drug is definitely a breakthrough that the world badly needs at the moment. The positive results of its efficacy make it a first-line therapy until a vaccine gets approved.

So far, the leaders in the vaccine race include Moderna (MRNA), Inovio (INO), Sinovac Biotech (SVA), AstraZeneca (AZN)/Oxford, Merck (MRK), Sanofi (SNY), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Novavax (NVAX), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Pfizer (PFE).

Dexamethasone has been around for almost 60 years, making the drug available practically everywhere.

It’s also safe since dexamethasone is included in the WHO’s list of essential drugs.

What we know is that this drug has been approved by the UK government to be used on COVID-19 patients in ventilators and oxygen.

Before being identified as a potential COVID-19 cure, dexamethasone has been widely used as a steroid treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, bowel disorders, skin disease, and some cancers.

The average retail cost of this drug is around $50 per 10mg. Since the treatment only requires a low dosage, the price would fall somewhere between $6 to $8 per patient.

Needless to say, this cheap treatment could hurt the sales of competing drugmakers aiming to come up with their own COVID-19 cure.

To date, the leaders in this field include Eli Lilly (LLY), Regeneron (REGN), and of course, Gilead Sciences (GILD).

Among those, the only treatment to show a noticeable effect in treating severe COVID-19 patients is Gilead’s Remdesivir.

Although Remdesivir has not been hailed as a miracle cure, this Gilead product managed to offer sufficient benefits to fuel demand.

According to its Phase 3 trial data, 65% of patients dosed with Remdesivir for five days showed better clinical improvement compared to a standard-of-care group.

When the pandemic broke out, Gilead announced that it’s giving away its remaining supply of Remdesivir, which amounts to roughly 1.5 million doses.

Nonetheless, the company disclosed that it plans to invest up to $1 billion on the development of the drug for COVID-19 patients.

Since government funding also comprises a portion of Remdesivir’s development, the arrangement inevitably raises the question of how much revenue the drug can generate.

After all, pricing will definitely be crucial because the company will have to strike a balance between making an acceptable profit and offering an affordable cure to patients.

Financial analysts estimate that Remdesivir’s potential profit could reach $7.7 billion by 2022.

If these estimates turn out right, then Gilead investors are sitting on a veritable gold mine.

Regardless of Remdesivir’s sales, Gilead remains a giant biotechnology and pharmaceutical company with a market capitalization of $97.18 billion.

In fact, it’s considered as one of the recession-resistant companies today thanks to its diversified portfolio and strategic acquisitions.

One of the main reasons for its stature in the industry is the fact that Gilead continues to be the definitive leader in the HIV market today.

Its top-selling drug Biktarvy recorded an impressive $4.1 billion in sales for the first quarter of 2020 alone, a substantial increase from its $3.6 billion earnings during the same period in 2019.

On top of that, Gilead secured patent exclusivity for Biktarvy until the early 2030s. This all but guarantees that the company’s cash cow remains safe from competition for many years.

The expansion of gene therapy Yescarta to cover the European market also proved to be effective. Sales of this lymphoma treatment jumped from $96 million in the first quarter of 2019 to $140 million in the same period this year.

Meanwhile, Gilead’s $4.9 billion acquisition of Forty Seven in April this year indicated the company’s move to expand its oncology sector. Specifically, blood cancer therapy Magrolimab is projected as the next blockbuster.

All these demonstrate that Gilead is well-positioned to handle major financial and even health crises.

More importantly, Gilead’s position as a leader in the search for a COVID-19 cure indicates its capacity to withstand a possible second wave of this pandemic as well as the potential to boost its sales in the process.

June 23, 2020

Biotech Letter

Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
June 23, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(WHY SEATTLE GENETICS IS ON FIRE)
(SEGN), (MRK), (TAK), (GSK), (BGNE), (RHHBY), (NVS), (PFE), (IMG)

Why Seattle Genetics is on Fire

Biotech Letter

It’s not all about the Coronavirus

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of over 120,000 people and is causing the suffering of almost 1.3 million patients in the United States alone, cancer and heart disease remain the leading causes of death in the country.

The American Cancer Society journal estimates that there will be around 1.8 million cancer cases this year, with 606,520 of those resulting in deaths.

Needless to say, the continuously increasing incidence of this deadly disease has prompted a number of companies in the biotechnology and healthcare sectors to invest substantially in creating and developing drugs for cancer treatment.

Buoyed by this demand, biotechnology company Seattle Genetics (SEGN) has gained 40.1% in 2020 so far primarily thanks to its cancer drugs.

In fact, Seattle Genetics welcomed 2020 with a newly approved drug called Padcev, which the company developed alongside Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma to treat the most common type of bladder cancer.

Despite the pandemic, Padcev sales have been exceeding expectations and analysts are jacking up the sales estimates for this potent bladder cancer product.

Initially pegged to rake in roughly $10 million in quarterly sales, Padcev managed to beat the estimates by four- to fivefold with $34.5 million in the first quarter of 2020.

Since then, peak sales prediction for this drug has been increased to a whopping $2 billion, with its 2020 sales target to be around $221 million.

Approximately 80,000 new bladder cancer cases are diagnosed every year in the United States. Among these patients, 90% suffer from the urothelial type -- the kind that Padcev is formulated to address.

Adding to that, Padcev’s success can also be attributed to the fact that it’s the only FDA-approved product for this particular patient set.

Riding on the momentum of Padcev’s unchallenged success in the bladder cancer field, Seattle Genetics and Astellas are now looking to expand the drug’s indication to cover an even larger patient set.

If this works out, then Padcev opens a whole new slew of possibilities to the tune of an additional $5.8 billion to its revenue.

At the moment, Padcev is also not prescribed to patients in the earlier stages of the disease - a demand that Seattle Genetics aims to address with its collaboration with Merck (MRK) via the immuno-oncology’s powerhouse drug Keytruda.

Aside from its bladder cancer drug, Seattle Genetics is also actively making a name for itself in another field.

In April 2020, Seattle Genetics received another positive news from the FDA.

The company’s breast cancer drug Tukysa, which was expected to gain approval by August this year, received the green light four months earlier instead.

Tukysa is another potential blockbuster drug for Seattle Genetics, with the product’s peak sales estimated to reach $1.2 billion by 2030.

All these are actually pretty impressive considering that Seattle Genetics was a one-product biotechnology company just a year ago.

Its single product, Hodgkin lymphoma drug Adcetris, had a specially impressive 2019 because of label expansions.

The drug posted a 32% jump in net sales to reach $627.7 million in the US and Canada. For 2020, Adcetris’ sales is expected to grow somewhere between 8% and 12%.

Apart from expanding the use of both Adcetris and Padciv, Seattle Genetics is also looking into developing new antibody treatments specifically for patients with solid tumors and lymphomas.

It currently has several candidates undergoing clinical trials, with some of these potential treatments expected to go head-to-head against active competitors in the space, including Roche (RHHBY), Novartis (NVS), Takeda Pharmaceutical (TAK), Pfizer (PFE), and Immunogen (IMG).

Prior to the approval of Padcev and Tukysa, the major growth driver that augmented Adcetris’ earnings was the company’s royalty revenue.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, the biotechnology company raked in $72.3 million in royalty revenue. This is actually triple the amount it earned in the same period in 2018.

The main source of its royalty revenue at the time is the $40 million in milestone payment it received from Takeda.

The payment was triggered by the annual net sales of Adcetris that went beyond $400 million in Takeda’s territory.

The total royalty revenue was also supplemented by a milestone payment from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and an upfront payment from Seattle Genetics’ work with Beijing-based company BeiGene (BGNE).

In the first quarter of 2020, royalty revenues jumped to $20 million compared to the $16 million the company earned during the same period in 2019.

Once again, this growth was attributed to Adcetris’ sales and boosted by royalties from the company’s collaboration with Roche (RHHBY) on the latter’s lymphoma drug Polivy.

Seattle Genetics has consistently grown its revenue since 2011 when its first-ever drug Adcetris received approval. With the recent additions of potential blockbusters Padcev and Tukysa, the company’s financial picture looks brighter than ever.

One of the key factors in its success is that the company addresses significant patient sets, providing its investors with the confidence that it can attract physicians and patients on board.

The Hodgkin lymphoma drug market, which Adcetris has covered, is anticipated to grow by roughly $1.24 billion from 2019 through 2023.

The urothelial cancer drug market, where Padciv is currently king, is estimated to hit $3.6 billion by 2023, with a 23% compound annual growth rate.

Tukysa addresses another patient set with high demand as well, with reports showing that the spending on HER2-positive cancer is anticipated to jump by 54% to hit $9.89 billion by 2025.

June 18, 2020

Biotech Letter

Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
June 18, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(ABBVIE JOINS THE CORONA FRAY),
(ABBV), (REGN), (LLY), (GMAB), (RHHBY), (AMGN), (JNJ), (NVS), (GSK), (MRK), (AZN), (SNY), (AGN), (PFE)

June 9, 2020

Biotech Letter

Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
June 9, 2020
Fiat Lux

Featured Trade:

(HERE ARE FIVE VACCINE FRONTRUNNERS TO BUY NOW)
(MRNA), (AZN), (JNJ), (MRK), (PFE), (GSK), (SNY), (NVAX), (INO), (MYL)

Here Are Five Vaccine Frontrunners to Buy Now

Biotech Letter

Among hundreds of companies working on a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine, the US Government has picked five companies as the most likely candidates to develop the much-needed immunization shot soon.

This is a part of a process that usually takes years and even decades to complete. The goal is to have a COVID-19 vaccine available for Americans by January 2021.

The decision to winnow the field even before final results are out is the administration’s way of focusing its energy and resources on the most promising vaccine candidates, thereby coming up with a solution faster.

Four of the five companies are based in the United States and one is from the United Kingdom.

The list includes Massachusetts-based biotechnology firm Moderna (MRNA), which has a market capitalization of $22.63 billion.

It also features biotechnology and healthcare giants Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), with its $388.08 billion market cap; Merck & Co. (MRK), which has $207.63 billion in market cap, and Pfizer (PFE), with a market cap of $199.92 billion.

Cambridge-based pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca rounds up the list.

Both Moderna and AstraZeneca are already in Phase 2 trials, which means the companies are testing their candidates on human subjects.

Looking at their timeline, the two would most likely move forward to Phase 3, which involves large-scale human trials, in July.

The Phase 3 trials will require roughly 30,000 participants for each vaccine candidate. If all five vaccine candidates reach Phase 3, then that means 150,000 people will be asked to participate as test subjects.

What we do know so far is that the agreements involve commitments from the biotechnology companies regarding intellectual property, the number of doses expected, and the estimated price limits.

Here’s a brief background of the top five companies under Trump’s COVID-19 vaccine radar today.

Moderna (MRNA)

Moderna’s vaccine, called mRNA1273, is undergoing Phase 2 trials. When news broke about Moderna’s progress with the COVID-19 vaccine, shares of the company exploded by more than 200% year-to-date.

For its Phase 2 trial, Moderna seeks to enroll 600 healthy individuals to test mRNA-1273 administered 28 days apart.

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Moderna has been a clear favorite of NIH’s Dr. Anthony Fauci.

He called the vaccine “quite promising” and described the results of the Phase 1 study to be “better than we thought.” What we know about the vaccine is that it can “neutralize” the virus in patients.

In terms of its release, Moderna is projected to deploy mRNA-1273 by the end of 2020.

AstraZeneca (AZN)

AstraZeneca joined forces with Oxford University to develop AZD1222, which is now undergoing clinical trials in many sites in the UK.

Although the two have yet to complete its trials, AstraZeneca already agreed to supply 400 million vaccine doses to both the US and the UK in May.

Earlier this month, the company again completed a $750 million agreement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, and the Serum Institute of India (SII) to provide 1 billion vaccine doses to low and middle-income patients.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

Johnson & Johnson aims to begin its Phase 1 clinical trial by September, with the ultimate goal to supply over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine across the globe.

Although Moderna and AstraZeneca are ahead in terms of vaccine development, JNJ has been impressing investors with its efforts outside COVID-19.

In the first quarter of 2020, the healthcare giant showed off a 3.3% year-over-year jump in its sales and a 54.6% increase in its net earnings.

The revenue of its pharmaceutical division rose by 8.7% while its health division saw a 9.2% increase.

Dubbed as the “Dividend King” in the industry, JNJ stayed true to its title as it continues its 58-year streak of raising its quarterly dividend.

Reports show that the company raised its quarterly dividend by 6.3% to reach $1.01 per share, reaping a solid yield of 2.73%.

Regardless of its performance in the vaccine race, JNJ has proven its resilience not only in the COVID-19 crisis but also in past crises like the dot-com bubble and the collapse of the housing market.

Merck (MRK)

Merck’s strategy is to build on the technology of its successful Ebola vaccine and establish partnerships with non-profit research groups.

Like JNJ, Merck is also a stable dividend stock that investors can buy and hold for years. In the past 10 years, this biotechnology leader has posted a profit, even managing to hit double-digits the majority of the time.

This is a trend Merck once again showcased in the first quarter of 2020.

In its latest report, the company showed off $3.2 billion in profit in sales worth $12.1 billion — demonstrating a decent profit margin of 27%.

Sales increased by 11% year over year, with cancer drug Keytruda heading the charge with its 45% revenue growth from the same period in 2019.

Pfizer (PFE)

Pfizer has been collaborating with German drugmaker BioNTech (BNTX) to develop BNT162.

The pharma giant is expected to have the vaccine candidate ready by October this year and be able to produce “hundreds of millions” of COVID-19 doses by 2021.

Although Pfizer and BioNTech joined the race later than Moderna, the big healthcare company’s edge is that it’s actually working on four vaccines simultaneously.

Simply put, this strategy offers them more than a single change of winning.

Along with the other three big biotechnology companies, Pfizer is a safe bet for those looking to invest in cutting-edge vaccine efforts but don’t feel comfortable risking it with a clinical-stage firm.

Like JNJ and Merck, Pfizer’s vaccine work sounds promising, but even if its COVID-19 program falters, the healthcare giant can still make a strong case as an excellent investment.

In its first-quarter report for 2020, Pfizer’s biopharma arm indicated an 11% jump, thanks to top performers like blood clot treatment Eliquis whose sales climbed by 29% to reach $1.3 billion.

Breast cancer medication Ibrance also contributed $1.2 billion, showing off a 10% year-over-year growth while Xtandi sales increased by 25% year over year to record $209 million.

Aside from these, Pfizer is hard at work in spinning off its Upjohn unit to combine with Mylan (MYL). This deal will guarantee Pfizer shareholders with 57% share of the new company called Viatris.

Just a few weeks ago, Trump compared Operation Warp Speed to the Manhattan Project, which was a government-initiated program that led to the development of nuclear weapons in World War II.

However, critics say that the “Skunk Works” initiative in California is a more fitting comparison for this COVID-19 effort. That is, the government could simply be wasting its resources on candidates that might never be able to leave the design stage.

Regardless of where you stand on Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, the fact remains that countless biotechnology and healthcare companies — big and small — are working on a COVID-19 vaccine.

Outside the five companies chosen by the Trump administration, the list of strong contenders includes GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi (SNY).

Even smaller biotechnology companies like Inovio (INO) and Novavax (NVAX) are going all out on this.

Of course, it would also be foolish to completely disregard CanSino Biologics, which has been giving Moderna a run for its money since Day 1.

Despite not making the cut, these biotechnology and healthcare companies are still in hot pursuit and it’s still very much a neck-to-neck race.

Tag Archive for: (GSK)