Stock Alert: Novavax Up 6% As Phase 3 Trial Of COVID-19 Vaccine Initiated

(RTTNews) - Shares of Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) are gaining nearly 6% on Friday morning on news that the biotechnology company has commenced late-stage trial study of its COVID-19 vaccine.

NVAX is currently trading at $108.33, up $5.89 or 5.75%, on the Nasdaq.

Thursday evening, Novavax said it has initiated its first Phase 3 study to evaluate the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of NVX-CoV2373, Novavax' COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The trial is being conducted in the UK, in partnership with the UK Government's Vaccines Taskforce.

The company expects to enrol and immunize up to 10,000 individuals between 18-84 years of age.

NVX-CoV2373 is a vaccine candidate engineered from the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. NVX-CoV2373 was created using Novavax' recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike (S) protein.