BioNTech (BNTX) – Get BioNTech SE Report and Moderna (MRNA) – Get Moderna, Inc. Report were both falling Wednesday, continuing a trend for the rival biopharmas that has lasted for several straight sessions.
Shares of the Germany-based BioNTech down nearly 3% in premarket trading, while Moderna of Cambridge, MA Moderna as off 1.1%.
Activists and politicians have been pushing Moderna to cut prices on its Covid-19 vaccine and expand production for poorer countries, the Financial Times reported.
Moderna’s Woes Pile Up
The company is fighting a shareholder proposal demanding it open up its vaccine technology to poorer countries and explain why its prices are so high given the amount of government assistance it has received.
Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), a London-based asset manager, said Moderna’s shareholders deserve to know how US government funding for Covid vaccines affects “access to such products, such as setting prices”.
Moderna’s representatives have told the SEC it has been transparent about the pricing of sales to the U.S. government and will provide more details by mid-February.
Moderna shares took a dive on Monday after reports said the company was contesting a shareholder proposal for sharing its Covid vaccine technology with poor countries and lowering prices there.
Moderna said last week that its Covid vaccine booster shots induced a jump in antibodies that can fight the Covid omicron variant.
BioNTech and Omicron
Meanwhile, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told Le Monde earlier this month that vaccines will not be enough to withstand the Omicron variant.
“We must be aware that even triple-vaccinated are likely to transmit the disease…It is obvious we are far from 95% effectiveness that we obtained against the initial virus,” he said.
Last week, BioNTech and partner Pfizer (PFE) – Get Pfizer Inc. Report submitted longer-term follow-up data from the Phase 3 trial of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine in adolescents to the European Medicines Agency. The data was from 2,228 individuals 12 through 15 years old.
In the trial, a two-dose series was 100% effective against Covid-19, measured seven days through over four months after the second dose.
On a happier note, the Guardian reported that Pfizer-BioNTech shot is proving to be a booster for the German city of Mainz, which expects to become debt-free thanks to the tax revenues generated by the BioTech’s global success.