Taking a Shot with Novavax

Novavax, an American vaccine development company, joined the top ranks of the current COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers on July 7th with the recent award of a $1.6 billion federal grant to develop 100 million vaccine doses. With this recent deal, the federal government has now invested nearly $4 billion in vaccine development companies through a public-private partnership, Operation Warp Speed. Another notable American company is Moderna, which has received more than $500 million. Interestingly enough, these two companies are the top two assignees in the Vaccine category of the Pandemics/Epidemics Patent Radian®. 

The third biggest assignee in the Vaccine category is German biopharmaceutical company CureVac Ag, which was funded $338 million on June 15th by the German federal government. 

As discussed in a previous post, Moderna and CureVac Ag are leaders in the mRNA vaccine market. Meanwhile, Novavax brings forth a novel approach with a recombinant nanoparticle vaccine used in combination with a proprietary adjuvant. With the promising results of Phase 1 so far and the bountiful amount of patent documents in Novavax’s ownership, Operation Warp Speed seemed to have taken a safe bet in funding Novavax to increase the odds for a safe and effective vaccine by the end of the year. 

Below is a Magic Number® Patent Radian® diagram highlighting the patent documents assigned to Moderna, Novavax, and Curevac Ag regarding vaccines from 2018-2020. Explore the pandemics/epidemics sector through the free Magic Number® Pandemic Patent Forecast®.