Covid vaccine producers surge ahead of UK and US equity benchmarks

Shares in companies producing or working on the production of Covid vaccines surged ahead of the UK and US’s equity benchmarks in the first six months of this year, new figures published today reveal.

Analysis by FactSet shows that an equally weighted holding of all 13 vaccine producing companies climbed over 45 per cent during the first six months of 2021, better than three times the performance of the S&P 500 and five times better than the FTSE 100. 

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13 listed companies globally are involved in the production of Covid vaccines. Shares in these businesses have risen 45.3 per cent in the first half of 2021.

The research does not include three Chinese producers and one Japanese/Canadian producer, for which accurate financial information is not available.

The rises highlight the fillip that global vaccination campaigns have provided for pharmaceutical firms that have historically underperformed against global equity indexes.

Strong demand for vaccines from developed economies has driven revenues at firms involved in Covid vaccine production and research up sharply.

The share price of the seven leading, publicly-traded manufacturers of Covid vaccines – including AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer, and Sinopharm – averaged growth of over 60 per cent in the first half of this year. 

Over the same period, the US benchmark S&P 500 gained 14.4 per cent, rising to 4297, up from 3756.

London’s premier index the FTSE 100 added 8.9 per cent, up to 7037 from 6460.

The best performer of the 13 firms was BioNTech, which shot up 174.6 per cent from 81.52p in December 2020 to 223.88p in June 2021.

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CanSino Biologics was the second best performer, adding 133.8 per cent over the same period, increasing to 412.6p from 176.5p.

Moderna came third, up 124.9 per cent to 234.9p from 104.47p.

The companies producing vaccines predominantly used in the UK’s vaccination rollout notched more modest gains compared to other vaccine producers.

AstraZeneca gained 18.6 per cent in the first six months of this year, up to 86.83p from 73.24p, while Pfizer rose 6.4 per cent, up to 39.16p from 36.81p.

Governments have moved with unprecedented speed over the past year and a half to develop vaccines for the coronavirus, analysts at Biopharma Dive said.

Vaccination drives have picked up pace as countries rush to inoculate their populations to combat rising rates of the Delta variant of coronavirus first identified in India and to reduce the likelihood of further deadly strains of the Covid virus developing.

Demand for Covid vaccinations is likely to stay strong in the long run as emerging markets ramp up their immunisation programmes.

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