By Julien Ponthus
LONDON (Reuters) – Shares in pharmaceutical firms involved in the production of COVID-19 vaccines slumped on Thursday, with U.S. shares set to extend losses triggered the previous day by President Joe Biden’s plan to back intellectual property waivers on vaccines.
Frankfurt-listed shares of Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax fell 5.2%, 8.2% and 10.1% respectively, extending losses of up to 6% seen on Wednesday.
They were tipped to open lower on Wall Street, falling 2.6% to 4.2% in pre-market trade.
The losses were triggered after Biden said he would support a World Trade Organization waiver for vaccine intellectual property to enhance the fight against the pandemic.
Implementing such a waiver could be a lengthy process but could eventually dent revenues and profits for companies which have invested heavily in COVID-19 vaccines.
“It could clearly reduce potential revenues some of these firms were expecting to generate from licensing their patents”, said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.
Pharma shares lost ground elsewhere too, with Germany’s Curevac, seeking approval for its COVID-19 vaccine, tumbling as much as 15%.
Shares in Chinese vaccine makers slumped too with CanSino Biologics Inc, a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine maker, down 16%. Its Hong Kong shares dived as much as 22%.
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group fell by the 10% daily limit.
Shares in London-listed AstraZeneca were unchanged however. Europe’s index of healthcare stocks <.sxdp> was down 0.5%, slightly lagging the pan-European STOXX 600 benchmark.
(Reporting by Julien Ponthus, Joice Alves; editing by Sujata Rao)
