Novavax Coronavirus Vaccine Candidate Shows 96% Efficacy With Original Strain, 86% Against U.K. Variant

Will Novavax's (NASDAQ:NVAX) NVX-CoV2373 be the next coronavirus vaccine to win major regulatory approval? Its prospects look good after the company's release of two sets of clinical trial data on Thursday.

The first, drawn from a phase 3 study in the U.K., indicate that the vaccine candidate was 96.4% efficacious against mild, moderate, and severe COVID-19 caused by the original strain of the coronavirus. Against the so-called "U.K. variant," which is apparently far more transmissible, NVX-CoV2373's efficacy was 86.3%.