INJECTION OF OPTIMISM
Wall Street swoons over new COVID vax findings
The company leading the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine announced “positive” early results from human trials on Monday — with some participants producing antibodies to ward off the disease.
The findings from biiotech firm Moderna
Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., helped spur a rally on Wall Street, after the financial market’s worst week in almost two months.
The Dow Jones industrial average surged 911.95 points, or 3.9 percent, to 24,597.37, while the S&P 500 climbed 3.2 percent and the Nasdaq was up 2.4 percent.
Shares in Moderna skyrocketed as much as 30 percent on the news before closing at $80, up 20 percent.
The data were based on results from eight healthy, middle-aged volunteers who were dosed with the vaccine in March, Moderna said.
Participants were found to have antibody levels that were equal to or exceeded those found in patients who had recovered from COVID-19.
In all, Moderna has dosed 45 patients between the ages of 18 and 55 with one or two shots of the vaccine, which was being tested at three different doses: 25 micrograms, 100 micrograms and 250 micrograms.
About two weeks after receiving a second booster shot, those at the 25- and 100-microgram dosage levels were found to have stimulated an immune response to the virus, the company said in a press release.
So far, the kind of detailed antibody results needed to assess responses are available only in the eight volunteers.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told Bloomberg that the results “couldn’t have been better.”
“This is a very good sign that we make an antibody that can stop the virus from replicating,” he said.
The experimental vaccine, mRNA-1273, was found to be “generally safe and well tolerated,” the company said.
Still, more extensive testing is needed to see if the results hold.
The findings are only from the first of three testing stages that vaccines and drugs normally undergo.
In the next phase of the study, led by the US National Institutes of Health, researchers will try to determine which dose is best for a definitive experiment that they aim to start in July.
Monday’s market surge underscored Wall Street’s excitement about medical advances in the fight against the coronavirus. Investors also cheered signs in April that Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir may help treat coronavirus patients.
Some experts consider an effective vaccine key to restarting the economy because it will help make consumers comfortable traveling, shopping and eating out after spending months hunkered down at home to avoid the deadly illness.
“It significantly lowers the risk of a secondary shutdown, and . . . in line with that, it reduces the risk that you have a significant resurgence of this the next flu season,” said Dan Genter, CEO and chief investment officer of RNC Genter Capital Management.
Investors “want good news so bad, they just want anything that’s going to allow them to feel good about reinvesting,” Genter added.
Moderna’s announcement came after government officials launched a project called “Operation Warp Speed” to develop a vaccine, with the aim of having 300 million doses ready by January.
Worldwide, about a dozen vaccines are in or approaching the first stages of testing.