Valneva SE (NSDQ:VALN) announced promising preliminary lab results involving recipients of its inactivated VLA2001 COVID-19 vaccine.
In a pseudovirus neutralization assay involving sera from 30 volunteers in the Phase 1/2 trial VLA2001-201, all samples had neutralizing antibodies against the ancestral virus and the delta variant. In addition, 87% (26 samples) had neutralizing antibodies to omicron.
VALN shares jumped 30.41% to $42.74 in mid-afternoon trading.
“We continue to believe that VLA2001 could be an important component of the fight against COVID-19, and Valneva remains fully committed to bringing VLA2001 to people who need it as soon as we can,” said Dr. Juan Carlos Jaramillo, chief medical officer of Valneva, in a statement.
Valneva said it was sending data on an ongoing basis to several regulatory agencies, including the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Valneva has a deal with the European Commission to provide up to 60 million doses of its VLA2001 vaccine over two years.
Assuming the vaccine is authorized in Europe in the first quarter of the year, the company plans on shipping doses there in April.
Founded in 2013, Valneva resulted from a merger between the French firm Vivalis and the Austrian company Intercell.
In 2020, Valneva signed a $1.5 billion COVID-19 vaccine supply agreement with Dynavax (Emeryville, California).
Also in 2020, Valneva announced a collaboration with Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) to co-develop Lyme disease vaccine.
Filed Under: Infectious Disease