Investors may want to keep an eye on CureVac (CVAC).
After pulling back from about $12.50 to $10.50, CVAC could see higher highs. In fact, according to a UBS analyst, the stock is ready to compete in the big leagues.
“UBS analyst Eliana Merle upgraded the shares to Buy from Neutral and raised her 12-month target for the stock’s price to $18 from $8 on Thursday. Merle listed recent clinical trial data and the biopharmaceutical company’s ability to gain market share as reasons for the upgrade,” as noted by Barron’s. “This is a major inflection point for the story, and suggests a potentially competitive mRNA platform relative to mRNA peers.”
The analyst also noted that CVAC has a market cap of around $2 billion. Meanwhile, its competitor Moderna has a market cap close to $77 billion – a gap the analyst says, “creates an underappreciated opportunity.”
Helping, the company just posted positive preliminary data from ongoing Phase 1 clinical programs in COVID-19 and seasonal flu, in collaboration with GSK. The preliminary results generated showed that vaccine candidates using a modified second-generation mRNA backbone produced promising immunogenicity and reactogenicity profiles in both indications, as noted by CVAC. Based on these preliminary data, the development of modified mRNA COVID-19 and flu vaccine candidates will be advanced to the next stage of clinical testing in 2023.
Continued success could send CVAC to higher highs.
