Vaxart Inc (NASDAQ: VRTX) was a top gainer in yesterday’s session, closing the day with gains of 63.56%, and continued to record gains aftermarket. The company announced that it had entered into an agreement with Emergent Biosolutions Inc for the development and manufacture of an oral vaccine for COVID-19. Through the deal, Emergent Biosolutions will be responsible for the manufacturing of a vaccine developed by Vaxart. Vaxart’s oral vaccine is developed using the company’s VAAST platform.
As per the deal, the development of the vaccine will start immediately. Once Vaxart comes up with the vaccine, Emergent will come up with bulk amounts of it, allowing Vaxart to commence phase 1 clinical studies in H2 of 2020. The deal also stipulates that Emergent will offer development services at its Gaithersburg facility, and also handle manufacturing in Baltimore.
Commenting on the deal, Vaxart CEO Wouter Latour stated that he was happy they were joining with manufacturers of high repute to help come up with an oral vaccine for COVID-19. He added that the company believed that giving a room temperature tablet gives huge advantages in terms of the logistics of rolling out a mass vaccination campaign. He concluded by saying that Emergent was a great partner in this project.
On his part, Emergent Senior Vice President Syed Husain stated that the company was happy to roll out its nimble expertise as a way of supporting innovators like Vaxart. He added that the company was looking forward to the start of the application of its molecule-to-market services for future large scale projects.
From its price action, VXRT is in a breakout. The stock opened the day at $1.23 and traded between a low of $1.23 and a high of $2.04, before closing the day at $1.93. Volumes in the day stood at 18.41 million.
About Vaxart Inc
Vaxart Inc is a pharmaceutical company that develops vaccines through its oral vaccine proprietary platform. It is based in San Francisco, California.