Vaxart Stock Soars on Oral Flu Vaccine Results

Vaxart Stock is up over 165% after after the biotechnology company announced results from a phase 2 trial that its oral flu vaccine performed better than Sanofi's Fluzone.

"These latest results show that our vaccine elicited a significant expansion of mucosal homing receptor α4β7+ (β7+) plasmablasts to approximately 60% of all activated B cells, while Fluzone only maintained baseline levels of 20%," said Chief Scientific Officer Sean Tucker. Wouter Latour, chief executive of Vaxart, said, "We believe this clearly differentiates our oral vaccines from conventional injectable vaccines, and strongly suggests that vaccines based on Vaxart's proprietary vector adjuvant system could be optimal to protect against mucosal pathogens, including some of the major public health threats such as flu, norovirus, RSV and many others."

Vaxart previously reported only 37% of study participants receiving the Vaxart vaccine developed influenza infection after challenge, compared to 44% of those receiving Fluzone and 71% of those receiving placebo. The new Phase 2 data to be presented at IDWeek 2018 showed that the Vaxart vaccine generated a strong increase in mucosal homing antibody secreting cells, or β7+ plasmablasts. In protected study participants, the percentage of β7+ plasmablasts in recipients of the Vaxart vaccine nearly doubled, whereas the percentage of β7+ plasmablasts in Fluzone recipients remained unchanged.

The Phase 2 study was completed with support from Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). Vaxart received a $13.9 million contract from BARDA in September 2015 to support the advanced development of more effective influenza vaccines to ultimately improve seasonal and pandemic influenza preparedness. The contract was increased to $15.7 million in 2017.