- Les quedan 1.5B de pasivos. Novavax is also continuing to drive down costs, which it’s already reduced by half, while working to address $2.5 billion in liabilities as of Dec. 31. Of that, it cut more than $650 million over the first four months of Jacobs’ tenure, he said. And a recent amendment to a contract with the Canadian government that stands to drive $350 million to Novavax should also help.
- Peligro de offering o sin peligro una alianza. How will you fund a phase 3 trial and ultimately get it to market? Certainly, one option could be partnerships, another is raising capital — dilutive, nondilutive.
- You see a vaccines division as part of a large company that has a buffer, and has other income streams. It’s not easy to do. But boy oh boy, when you do it right, is it a remarkable thing for humankind and for investors.
Artículo completo:
Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) CEO John Jacobs is continuing to attack the priority list he laid out earlier this year, with eyes on one desired outcome: end 2023 in a stronger financial position.
Jacobs took the reins of the Gaithersburg vaccine maker in January, succeeding longtime leader Stan Erck, as the company juggled more than a dozen early and mid-stage clinical programs, research and development and commitments to third parties around the world “that were pulling our resources, our time, our focus and energy in multiple directions,” he said in an interview.
“In the short run, we really had to narrow that like a laser to cut through this really difficult time in the company’s history,” he said, calling Novavax’s achievements through the pandemic nonetheless “remarkable.”
“Did it meet all of the expectations, the lofty expectations, that were set? No — and that has a price to pay in the short run on Wall Street,” he said. “We’ll fix that, though. We ought to succeed.”
expand
John Jacobs is president and CEO of Gaithersburg's Novavax.
COURTESY NOVAVAX
Top of the list: get an updated Covid-19 vaccine out this fall. Now with manufacturing well underway, Novavax must complete regulatory filings and earn approvals in time — “still a hurdle,” Jacobs said, as the timeline would sit in the Food and Drug Administration’s hands. (The biotech separately intends to seek the agency’s full approval for its Covid vaccine for next year; the shot is now available through emergency use, an authorization that doesn’t expire until after 2023.)
Novavax is also continuing to drive down costs, which it’s already reduced by half, while working to address $2.5 billion in liabilities as of Dec. 31. Of that, it cut more than $650 million over the first four months of Jacobs’ tenure, he said. And a recent amendment to a contract with the Canadian government that stands to drive $350 million to Novavax should also help.
That’s after issuing a going concern warning in late February, when the business eliminated a quarter of its headcount, “a very difficult decision” that “weighs heavily on the heart and on the mind,” Jacobs said. “But without that, we probably wouldn’t have been able to survive,” he added. “We had to make those tough choices.”
expand
Novavax is manufacturing its updated Covid-19 vaccine at commercial scale. It also intends to seek full FDA approval for the protein-based shot ahead of next year.
MATTHEW FELDMAN
Jacobs spoke with us about his first six months in the top slot at Novavax, and what it’ll take to position itself for long-term success.
Why was Novavax the right fit for you after you’d led Pennsylvania’s Harmony Biosciences? I was looking for a company that was fully integrated, had R&D all the way through to commercialization, was global [and] not just U.S., was publicly traded and within commuting distance of my house — and had the ingredients to succeed: a really good technology platform that could change global health, and an unmet need. There’s only a handful of companies I can think of on the East Coast that even meet all of those criteria. And when this one came up… it gave me an opportunity to help turn the company around, to help save it and bring it to where it should be, and where we almost made it to during the pandemic.
How do you change that perception that Novavax has a track record of missing opportunities and, most recently, lost out on its chance to capitalize on the Covid-19 vaccine market? To me it was very important that we were in the fight of our life financially. It’s one of the reasons I’m here, and to let Wall Street know, “Hey look, we’re really digging out of a hole, there’s a lot of risk — operational risk and financial risk — right now, in the short run, to this company. It’s not clear sailing and a lot has to go our way and we need to be immediately decisive, and make tough decisions fast and well, many of them, and they need to go our way. And if so, we’ll have a remarkable future, but there’s risk in that.” And be clear and transparent.
How does Novavax’s Covid vaccine fit into the long-term business strategy? These viruses mutate enough that you have to update the strain — we’re anticipating annually, at least. The virus is actually mutating more slowly and less severely now, as it finds fit with the human population… But we expect it to mutate, we expect to update each year, and we expect to be on an even playing field with our competition from a policy standpoint and an approval standpoint.
You recently reported positive data from the phase 2 clinical trial of your Covid-flu vaccine candidate. How will you fund a phase 3 trial and ultimately get it to market? Certainly, one option could be partnerships, another is raising capital — dilutive, nondilutive. There’s a dozen other options you could have to try to bring that trial forward with creative thinking. What we want are options, so we can make the best choice for our investors and our company, to try to move that trial forward accordingly. And executing our plan and putting our company in a stronger financial position gives us the leverage we need to have more optionality.
What’s the challenge of running a vaccine company like Novavax? This is a complex symphony of effort of over 2,000 people every day, with things that are beyond our control, some things that are within our control, that have to go right to get a vaccine out the door. That’s why you don’t see many vaccine companies, especially those that are stand-alone. You see a vaccines division as part of a large company that has a buffer, and has other income streams. It’s not easy to do. But boy oh boy, when you do it right, is it a remarkable thing for humankind and for investors.
