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Vaccine maker Novavax on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter income and earnings that missed Wall Road’s estimates and reiterated plans to chop prices because it fights to keep afloat.
Nonetheless, Novavax narrowed its losses within the quarter from the identical interval a yr in the past, whilst demand for the biotech firm’s Covid vaccine – its solely marketable product – and different merchandise that fight the virus proceed to plummet worldwide.
Here is what Novavax reported for the fourth quarter in contrast with what Wall Road was anticipating, based mostly on a survey of analysts by LSEG, previously referred to as Refinitiv:
- Loss per share: $1.44 vs. a lack of 45 cents anticipated
- Income: $291.3 million vs. $322 million anticipated
The corporate posted a web lack of $178.4 million, or $1.44 per share, for the quarter. That compares to a web lack of $182.2 million, or $2.28 per share, for the year-earlier quarter.
Novavax generated fourth-quarter gross sales of $291.3 million, down from the $357.4 million within the year-earlier interval.
However Novavax CEO John Jacobs stated the corporate had some income transfer from 2023 into 2024 as a result of timing of some advance buy agreements for doses of its Covid shot.
“I would not have a look at it as gross sales that had been misplaced … however there’s rather more of a timing ingredient than anything,” Jacobs informed CNBC in an interview.
Novavax expects full-year 2024 income to return in between $800 million and $1 billion. That forecast displays an anticipated $500 million to $600 million in income from superior buy agreements and $300 million to $400 million from business market product gross sales, royalties and different income from the corporate’s “partner-related exercise.”
Analysts surveyed by LSEG count on 2024 income of $969.6 million.
Novavax expects first-quarter income to return in at $100 million, which displays the tail finish of the present Covid vaccination season. The corporate beforehand anticipated $300 million in gross sales for the interval.
Novavax reiterated its plans to slash extra bills this yr as a part of the world cost-cutting plan it launched final yr.
The corporate plans to decrease its mixed analysis and growth in addition to promoting, basic and administrative bills to a spread of $700 million to $800 million in 2024.
Novavax already shaved down these mixed bills to $1.21 billion final yr. That is $150 million greater than the corporate’s preliminary goal for these bills, Jacobs famous. These mixed bills got here in at $1.69 billion in 2022.
The corporate additionally lowered its working bills in 2023 by $1.1 billion, or 41%, in comparison with 2022. It additionally minimize its workforce by 30% in comparison with the primary quarter of 2023.
The cuts will assist Novavax give attention to additional creating its mixture vaccine focusing on Covid and the flu, which it plans to launch in 2026. The corporate expects to begin a late-stage trial on that shot within the second half of the yr.
Jacobs stated that mixture jab will open up a market that ranges between 120 and 140 million doses a yr. The corporate’s knowledge means that a big portion of people that obtain separate Covid and flu photographs will convert to mixture choices, he added.
The outcomes come a yr after the biotech firm first raised considerations about its potential to remain in enterprise. Shares of Novavax fell greater than 50% final yr.
However the inventory obtained an enormous increase final week after it eradicated what some analysts thought of one of many largest uncertainties across the firm.
On Thursday, Novavax stated it’s going to settle a bitter arbitration dispute with Gavi, a nongovernmental world vaccine group, over a canceled Covid vaccine buy settlement. Novavax may pay round $300 to $400 million to the group, however the whole quantity could also be much less if Gavi decides to order extra photographs from the corporate over the subsequent 5 years.
If Novavax will get to settle a part of the arbitration by vaccine orders, the corporate will have the ability to set a value for these doses, Jacobs stated.
“We get to set that value and it permits us to regulate the economics of that,” he stated, including that “it could be a fairly favorable technique to settle that settlement by doses and once more, that helps fulfill the mission” of distributing photographs extra equitably in lower-income international locations.
