Monkeypox -- May 21, 2022

Stocks mentioned, action May 20, 2022:

• Emergent BioSolutions Inc (EBS): up 12%; up $4; trading at $36
• Chimerix, Inc (CMRX): up 7%, then up 13% after-hours; trading at $2.35 at the close; after-hours, $2.65.
• Bavarian Nordic A/S (BVNRY): up 4%; up 40 cents; trading at $11.

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As monkeypox quickly spreads, a handful of biotechs spring into action, May 20, 2022. Link here.

Emergent Biosolutions’ stock jumped more than 10% on Friday, four days after the company plumped down $225 million for the rights to Chimerix’s smallpox vaccine. Chimerix’s stock was up more than 3.8% on Friday. And Bavarian Nordic $BVNRY — which closed a $119 million deal with BARDA to provide the US government with freeze-dried doses of the Jynneos vaccine — was up nearly 2.5%. 

FDA approves first live, non-replicating vaccine to prevent smallpox and monkeypox, September 24, 2019. Link here. 

Emergent to buy Sanofi smallpox vaccine and take on CDC contract, July 18, 2017. Link here.

Smallpox vaccine, what you need to know, New York Health, April, 2003.

Scientific American, March 3, 2003. Link here.

There are two types of smallpox vaccine that would be administered in the event of an outbreak in the U.S. Both vaccines use the same strain of vaccinia virus, the so-called New York Board of Health strain, and they differ only in the way they are prepared. The old Dryvax vaccine, made in the 1970s by Wyeth Laboratories, was made by purifying vaccinia virus obtained from pustules removed from deliberately infected cows. The vaccine currently produced by Acambis-Baxter Laboratories is made using modern tissue-culture methods: the vaccinia is grown in cells in a laboratory and then purified.