The share price of Danish vaccine company Bavarian Nordic soared on Wednesday after the World Health Organization (WHO) and scientists called for urgent action against a more contagious and deadly variant of mpox on Tuesday.

Bavarian Nordic is the only company with an approved vaccine against mpox, Jynneos, which the company also benefited from back in 2022 when other variants of mpox were rampant, spreading from Africa to a number of Western countries.

As has been the case with previous variants, Bavarian Nordic expects its vaccine to cover the new variant as well.

”We expect our vaccine to be fully effective against Clade 1b, which is the latest variant we are talking about here. Our vaccine technology covers the entire virus, so we have no idea that it would not cover the new variant,” says Head of Investor Relations Rolf Sass Sørensen.

Outbreaks have been underreported

The outbreak of the new variant is not new, but according to Bavarian Nordic, it has been underreported by the authorities, a situation that changed on Tuesday when the WHO and researchers issued strong calls to action.

”There is a critical need to address the recent increase in mpox cases in Africa,” Rosamund Lewis, WHO technical lead for mpox, said in a briefing to journalists on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Back in 2022, it was the Clade 2 variant that was rampant. After that, there was a variant 2b - and Clade 1 has also been circulating for some time.

”Now there is a variant called 1b. This is nothing new. There have been outbreaks in Africa of Clade 1 and also 1b for a while, and we always thought it was underreported. Then there was a journalist briefing on Tuesday, which resulted in some articles that attracted a lot of attention,” says Sørensen.

The attention has also resonated on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, where Bavarian Nordic’s share price ended the day 14% higher at DKK 177.55 at 15:15 CET.

The price reaction suggests that investors see opportunities for Bavarian Nordic to win some new contracts for the supply of Jynneos, as was the case in 2022.

How likely do you think that is?

”We don’t have any speculations about that. But it’s obvious that an epidemic that is not managed increases the risk of spread, and if you have a disease that is seen as so dangerous that spreads to the Western world, then the Western world will go crazy.”

”It may well be that Africa has a slightly different approach because they are affected by so many dangerous things like war and other deadly diseases, but if it hits Copenhagen, New York or elsewhere, some countries will react,” says Sørensen.

In dialog with Western countries

He also emphasizes that the company has communicated several times that it is in dialogue with Western countries about MPox vaccines.

”In our forecast for the business area in which mpox is located, we have guided revenue in 2024 of DKK 2.7-3.0bn [USD 387-430m, ed.-], and we have started the year with signed contracts of DKK 1.6bn [USD 229m, ed.-]. This has led investors and analysts to ask, what about the rest- well, these are the dialogues we have with different countries about contracts. These are dialogs that go back and forth,” says Sørensen.

English edit: Catherine Brett