Moderna, BioNTech Lead Losses on Vaccine IP Waivers By Investing.com

By Christiana Sciaudone

Investing.com — Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), BioNTech and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) took the brunt of the news that the U.S. is supporting waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines to end the global pandemic.

“The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” said U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai in a statement on Wednesday. “We will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) needed to make that happen.” 

Moderna, which just reported its first profit ever, fell 8%, and BioNTech dropped 9%. Pfizer dropped almost 2%, while AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN)’s American Depository Receipts and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) traded slightly lower. 

While the U.S. has seen cases slow dramatically since vaccinations have spread, countries like India, Brazil and Argentina are seeing unrelenting deaths from the virus. Vaccinations have been slow to reach those countries, whose economies have been upended by the pandemic.

In response Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Chief Executive Officer Stephen J. Ubl said: “In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety. This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines.”

Ubl accused Biden of reversing course on his policy to build up infrastructure and create jobs “by handing over American innovations to countries looking to undermine our leadership in biomedical discovery.” 

Moderna today reported earnings per share of $2.84 on its best sales yet of $1.94 billion, though that was lower than the expected $2.23 billion, according to data compiled by Investing.com.

“Based on these first quarter accomplishments and our current manufacturing scale-up trajectory, we were pleased to again increase our base plan for 2021 to 800 million doses. The Moderna team and our manufacturing partners are working hard to get as close to 1 billion doses in 2021 as we can,” Moderna Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel said in a statement. “The feedback from governments around the world requesting high-efficacy mRNA vaccines and variant boosters is overwhelming.” 

The company said it will make additional investments to increase global supply for the Covid-19 vaccine to up to 3 billion doses in 2022.

Tai defended the move, saying “the administration’s aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible.”