It expects sales of $4 billion to $5 billion in 2022, it said Monday, as it reported lower-than-expected revenue for the fourth quarter.
The biotech reported $222 million in revenue after the market closed. The unanimous call among analysts surveyed by FactSet was $332 million.
The Novavax Covid-19 vaccine brought back promising data in Phase 3 trials last year, but it has not yet been licensed in the United States. The company says the vaccine is licensed in the European Union, Australia, Canada and Great Britain, among other markets.
Investors have become frustrated with the company, which is said to have run into production problems. in early February, Novavax admitted Reuters reports that it has completed delivery of just 10 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine so far, far less than expected.
Novavax shares are up more than 1900% since the start of 2020, when you started the year with less than $4. It closed at more than $300 per share in February of 2021, but has fallen since then. On Monday afternoon, the stock was trading at $80.56, down 43.7% so far this year, and down 66.5% over the past 12 months.
Novavax’s forecast of 2022 revenue of $4 billion to $5 billion is in line with the FactSet consensus call of $4.7 billion.
Novavax (stock symbol: NVAX) also said data from an expanded analysis of a phase 3 trial of its Covid-19 vaccine in the UK showed 82.5% efficacy against all infections after six months. Data was collected from November 2020 through May 2021, before delta and omicron waves.
The company’s head of research and development, Dr. Gregory Glenn, in a statement.
The company said revenue for the full 2021 fiscal year was $1.1 billion, up from $476 million in 2020. The company attributed the revenue increase to Covid-19 vaccine sales to companies that licensed the sale of the vaccine in South Korea and Indonesia.
Novavax said it spent $2.5 billion on research and development in 2021. It posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $846 million and a net loss of $1.7 billion for the fiscal year. Analysts had expected a net loss of $124 million in the fourth quarter and $1 billion for the fiscal year.
The company said it closed 2021 with $1.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
“NVX-CoV2373 has now received regulatory licenses globally, representing access to more than six billion people,” the company’s CEO, Stanley C. Erk, said in a statement. “We are confident in the potential of NVX-CoV2373 as a viable vaccine option due to its reassuring safety profile and efficacy against variants with the benefits of stable refrigerator storage.”
The company said it has developed an Omicron-specific version of its vaccine that is now being tested in the laboratory.
Write to Josh Nathan Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com
