Vaxart: Emergent to manufacture Vaxart's experimental COVID-19 vaccine - MarketWatch

Shares of Vaxart Inc. VXRT, +63.55% jumped 48% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the company said it had signed a deal with Emergent BioSolutions Inc. EBS, +0.50% to help develop and manufacture Vaxart's COVID-19 oral vaccine candidate. Emergent's stock was up 4% before the market opened. "We believe an oral vaccine administered using a room temperature-stable tablet may offer enormous logistical advantages in the roll-out of a large vaccination campaign," Vaxart CEO Wouter Latour said in a news release. The company, which had first announced plans to develop a vaccine on Jan. 31, expects to start a Phase 1 clinical trial in the second half of the year. Emergent is also contracting with Novavax Inc. NVAX, +37.48% on its vaccine candidate, and it has said it is developing two products to prevent or treat COVID-19 infections. Year-to-date, Emergent's stock is up 6.8%, while Vaxart is up 450.6%. The S&P 500 SPX, +5.99% is down 21.7%.

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