Novavax stock plunges on doubts about remaining in business

Yahoo Finance Live anchors Julie Hyman and Brad Smith discuss Novavax’s “substantial doubts” about the future as the company posted a wide fourth-quarter earnings miss.

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JULIE HYMAN: All right, Brad, let's move on to another mover. That is Novavax. Those shares are sinking some 24% after the biotech company missed estimates in its latest quarter and also warned of substantial doubt about its ability to stay in business through next year.

So this is just the latest hit for Novavax. I mean, effectively the company said it might go out of business, right? So this company didn't make anything until it made a COVID-19 vaccine.

BRAD SMITH: Right.

JULIE HYMAN: And because the mRNA vaccine sort of were first out of the gate, had higher adoption, it just didn't gain as much traction, and it's been sort of struggling.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, this one had efficacy issues as well when its candidate was reviewed and ultimately went through trials and so much so to the point where they could not get it released in that same time period and window as some of the others that were out there in market at that point for months, whether it was Pfizer, whether it was Johnson & Johnson, which actually still, even in their one-shot, didn't have the same efficacy that Pfizer's or Moderna's had. It still was able to make it to market.

Novavax was eventually only determined a viable option for some other countries around the world. And so with that in mind, sure, it does do a bit in helping us get out of the global pandemic. However, at the end of the day in monetizing the ability for that vaccine to actually sustain Novavax's business for a longer-term period of time, that's where it places the burdens on the financials not being able to get that approval timely, and you're seeing this continue to be reflected over the long term for Novavax as well.

JULIE HYMAN: I mean, the numbers in the US are pretty staggering. They sold 1.1 million doses of the vaccine. That compares with 400 million from Moderna and 650 million from Pfizer. So just to give you a little perspective, although as you said, it did sell them around the globe.