Monkeypox bite: Bavarian Nordic is becoming a 'hot stock' again

Bavarian Nordic A/S is having a bit of a meme-stock moment, with retail traders buying up shares in the monkeypox vaccine maker as cases of the virus steadily rise.

Shares in the Danish biotech, which makes the only monkeypox vaccine approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, have gained 69% since hitting a low in early May. At the same time, cases of the virus have jumped from just a handful in Europe at the start of last month to more than 1,200 cases, mostly in men, across the region, as well as in the Americas, the Middle East, and Australia by early June.

Bavarian Nordic got about 39% of its total revenues in 2021 from the Jynneos vaccine, which is approved for smallpox and monkeypox in the US and Canada and for smallpox in Europe. And the company’s chief financial officer Henrik Juuel said earlier this month that interest from various governments in buying the shot “has been overwhelming.”

Investors are taking notice. The shares, which had been slumping along with other biotechs in this year’s growth-stock rout, have been bouncing back, posting several days of outsized gains over the past month. Showing the impact of day traders, Bavarian Nordic gained as many as 5,000 new investors over the last month, taking the total number to 118,000, according to Thomas Duschek, the company’s communications partner.

Analysts covering the stock are also positive, with eight of the nine firms tracked by Bloomberg rating Bavarian Nordic a buy, and the average analyst price target suggesting almost 80% upside for the shares. But for some analysts, other products have more potential than its monkeypox and smallpox vaccine.
 

A “real improvement in the travel market this summer” will help the Danish vaccine maker, as its jabs for rabies and tick-borne encephalitis — Rabipur and Encepur — are both more likely to drive future growth than the Jynneos shot, said Gil Blum, a senior biotech analyst at Needham.

Still, the monkeypox outbreak has helped to raise the company’s profile. “It’s a little hard to quantify, but the marketing perspective is pretty important: this brought up their name,” Blum said, adding the attention received from its monkeypox vaccine may also help with the future launch of Bavarian’s vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is expected to come to market about a year later than several competitors.

In the past week, Bavarian has raised its 2022 revenue guidance twice: first after receiving a 500,000 dose order for Jynneos from the US, the second time after reciving a 110,000 dose order from the EU.