Novavax Inc. has signed a deal to sell up to 200 million doses of its Covid vaccine to the European Commission, the company said Wednesday.
The deal would cover an initial 100 million doses of NVX-CoV2373, the company's Covid-19 vaccine candidate, with an option for the commission to purchase an additional 100 million doses through 2023, according to a press release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Gaithersburg's Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) hopes to submit the candidate for review by the European Medicines Agency by the end of September.
The Montgomery County biotech has been working on its Covid-19 vaccine since the pandemic's early days, and in June reported the candidate proved to be 90% effective against predominant variants and was 100% effective in preventing moderate and severe cases of Covid in a trial including 30,000 subjects in the U.S. and Mexico.
Another late-stage trial with 15,000 adults in the United Kingdom showed NVX-CoV2373 to be 89.7% effective against all strains of the virus and 96% effective against the original strain. The company had previously committed to supplying 110 million doses of its vaccine to the U.S. and 1.1 billion doses to developing countries.
"With clinical data from our trials showing strong efficacy against Variants of Concern and Variants of Interest, we believe that our vaccine candidate will play a critical role in the effort to help control the pandemic in the EU and other regions in the world," Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a statement.
Novavax is also exploring the potential of combining its Covid vaccine with its flagship vaccine product, influenza vaccine NanoFlu. The biotech is building out a new headquarters and Vaccines Innovation Center to house much of this work.
Novavax will report second quarter earnings Thursday after market close.
