Novavax shares just tanked 35%: find out why

Shares of Novavax Inc (NASDAQ: NVAX) tanked nearly 35% in extended trading on Monday after the biotech company reported thoroughly disappointing results for its fiscal second quarter and lowered its annual sales outlook by 50%.

Novavax Q2 financial highlights

• Lost $510.5 million versus the year-ago $352 million
• Per-share loss climbed from $4.75 to $6.53
• Sales tanked 38% year-over-year to $185.9 million
• Consensus was EPS of $5.54 on $1.02 billion in sales
• R&D expenses were nearly cut in half from last year

U.S. FDA authorised the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in July. In the earnings press release, CEO Stanley Erck said:

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We’re distributing our vaccine globally and have gained positive momentum as we move into the remainder of 2022 and into 2023. Through continued expansions to our label for adolescents and boosting out vaccine’s competitive product profile, we’re confident it’ll play an important role in the long-term COVID-19 landscape.

Novavax shares are now down more than 70% for the year.

Novavax shares down on lowered guidance

Novavax ended the quarter with $1.40 billion in cash and equivalents (including restricted cash). For fiscal 2022, it now forecasts up to $2.3 billion in revenue only down from $4.0 billion to $5.0 billion it had guided for previously.

In a separate unsigned statement, the management cited “several evolving market dynamics” for the weak guidance and said:

We’ve shipped over 23 million doses since the beginning of July and, while in some cases delivery timing may be pushed into 2023, we don’t expect total contracted demand to change under the majority of our Advance Purchase Agreements.

Heading into the earnings print, Wall Street had a consensus “overweight” rating on Novavax shares.