After opening the year projecting COVID vaccine sales of between $800 million and $1 billion, Novavax has slashed its estimate to a range of $275 million to $375 billion.
It was 2020 and Maryland biotech Novavax was thinking big. It had a plan to become a COVID vaccine powerhouse, with enough manufacturing capacity to supply the U.S. all by itself, as its executives claimed. But four years later, Novavax has proven to be the little engine that couldn’t.Thursday as Novavax presented its quarterly earnings, Chief Financial Officer Jim Kelly said the company was “actively exploring” the sale of its manufacturing facility in the Czech Republic.Novavax purchased the site in May 2020 as part of a deal worth $167 million with the intent of producing more than 1 billion vaccine doses annually there. It was part of a dizzying scale up when the company—fueled by government funding—was awash with outsized expectations. These days, after missing the boat with its late-arriving protein-based vaccine, Novavax is cutting costs to create a more “lean and agile organization,” it said (PDF) in a second-quarter investor presentation. A sale of the former Praha Vaccines plant would “provide cash proceeds and reduction to our ongoing operating cost,” Kelly said during a conference call.In addition to missing out on the pandemic vaccine sales boom, Novavax has found out—like other COVID vaccine sellers—that the post-pandemic demand for shots has plummeted. As has become a quarterly routine, Novavax has slashed its annual sales projection for its jab to a window of $275 million to $375 million. The new estimate is down from a $400 million to $600 million range three months ago and an $800 million to $1 billion forecast to start the year. By comparison, in 2022, Novavax reported sales of Nuvaxovid at $2 billion. Last year, it generated revenue of $984 million. After Novavax in 2023 warned investors that it may not stay afloat, Sanofi threw the vaccine specialist a life preserver three months ago, paying $500 million upfront and taking a 4.9% equity position in the company as part of a deal to help commercialize Nuvaxovid and develop combination vaccines.Under the deal, Sanofi is co-commercializing Nuvaxovid in Europe, allowing Novavax to focus on the U.S., which is the company’s “largest market,” John Trizzino, Novavax’s chief operating officer, said on Thursday's conference call.“This should enable us to drive cost savings starting this season and continuing into 2025 and beyond, as we wind down our independent commercial presence in markets around the world, in anticipation of Sanofi taking the lead on commercialization of our COVID-19 vaccine starting in 2025,” Trizzino added. It all adds up to Novavax reverting to what it once was. “We’ve now put Novavax in the position to focus more on what we do best, which is research and development from this amazing technology platform,” CEO John Jacobs added. “We’re working diligently on transitioning the company away from focusing all of our energy on one product every season to now being able to focus on multiple shots on goal for potential future growth.”
