Valneva: stock slumps as collaboration ends
(CercleFinance.com) - French vaccine specialist Valneva announced on Monday that it would not renew its collaboration agreement in Covid-19 with the German-US company IDT Biologika.
Valneva said that this decision, which it said was taken "by mutual agreement" with its partner, was justified by the current levels of orders and existing stocks of its coronavirus vaccine.
The commercial manufacturing agreement signed last year called for IDT Biologika to produce and deliver the inactivated vaccine substance, known as VLA2001, from biosafety facilities in Germany.
However, in view of the reduction in the volume of orders from the European Commission, Valneva has decided to suspend production of the vaccine, which will result in Valneva paying IDT up to 36.2 million euros in cash and the equivalent of 4.5 million euros in kind for the material purchased by Valneva.
To date, there are between eight and 10 million doses in stock that the company hopes to sell on the international market over the next six to 12 months.
Given the expiry date for the use of the vaccine, if Valneva could not find buyers for its vaccine stocks, then the destruction of these stocks or the impossibility of using them would represent a significant loss of value for Valneva, warned analysts at Invest Securities this morning.
The broker estimates a loss of earnings at between 110 and 138 million euros, based on the unit price of 13.8 euros estimated under the contract with Brussels.
Following all these announcements, Valneva's shares fell sharply (around 12%) in Paris on Monday morning.
Copyright (c) 2022 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.
Valneva said that this decision, which it said was taken "by mutual agreement" with its partner, was justified by the current levels of orders and existing stocks of its coronavirus vaccine.
The commercial manufacturing agreement signed last year called for IDT Biologika to produce and deliver the inactivated vaccine substance, known as VLA2001, from biosafety facilities in Germany.
However, in view of the reduction in the volume of orders from the European Commission, Valneva has decided to suspend production of the vaccine, which will result in Valneva paying IDT up to 36.2 million euros in cash and the equivalent of 4.5 million euros in kind for the material purchased by Valneva.
To date, there are between eight and 10 million doses in stock that the company hopes to sell on the international market over the next six to 12 months.
Given the expiry date for the use of the vaccine, if Valneva could not find buyers for its vaccine stocks, then the destruction of these stocks or the impossibility of using them would represent a significant loss of value for Valneva, warned analysts at Invest Securities this morning.
The broker estimates a loss of earnings at between 110 and 138 million euros, based on the unit price of 13.8 euros estimated under the contract with Brussels.
Following all these announcements, Valneva's shares fell sharply (around 12%) in Paris on Monday morning.
Copyright (c) 2022 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.