[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by jyl

You’re talking about MRNA the stock?

Not enough manufacturing capacity. Doesn’t have solid IP. Not enough resources to do a fast followup with a gen 2 vaccine. Hasn’t inked many deals for MRNA1273. Not much in the way of other programs. Top executives selling stock like crazy.

Of the mRNA vaccine companies, I prefer BNTX. Half the valuation. Lots of capacity via PFE. Multiple followup candidates in the lab. Many deals cut, at a solid price. A lot of programs besides BNTX162, with major pharma/biotech partners, that are reasonably advanced - and not infectious disease vaccines, which are normally not a great market.

I don’t have much hope for the little latecomers like NVAX. Besides the so-so data, how are they going to do a 30,000 subject trial in 2021 when approved vaccines are widely available? “Dear volunteer, please take this shot which has a 50% chance of being placebo and a 50% chance of being an unproven maybe vaccine, instead of getting an actual known effective vaccine”. Unless the approved vaccines are very ineffective, there are actually ethical problems with that. I think there’s like a 4-5 month window to start and complete any further phase 3 trials on new vaccines - after that, need to do them in some other country that lacks access to approved vaccines. Or, run their trials against an approved vaccine instead of against placebo. Now you’re trying to prove superiority of your vaccine against the approved one, if the approved one is 50% effective and you think yours is 70% effective, you might need a trial even larger than 30,000 for enough statistical power. But if the rate of new infections is coming down due to vaccination or other, how long will it take and how much will it cost to enroll 50,000 subjects . . . and if someone is out there selling vaccine at cost (as Astrazeneca has committed to do for the first year I think) and has ramped up supply to many billions of doses/yr, how much money can you make when your vaccine finally gets approved in (maybe) 2H2021? Your vaccine will need to be really, clearly superior. Tough bar to clear.

The value of stock for a company like this is the hope they will get gobbled up by a large company for huge stupid money, which is likely if they hit a home run with the vaccine.
The risk-reward doesn't work for me but might for others.