The shares of pharmaceutical companies, especially those involved in the development and production of coronavirus vaccines, are steadily rising nowadays. For traders, both successful testing and new supply contracts are the best indicators of stock prices movement. Failures also affect price changes. This is what the French company Valneva SE has faced. Its shares plummeted 45% in Paris trading after the UK government canceled a contract with the manufacturer to supply the coronavirus vaccine. Britain accused the company of breaching its obligations and refused to buy 100 million doses of vaccine with a total value of around €1.4 billion. Valneva declined to comment on the reasons for the dispute. Many independent experts believe that the decision was affected by the cooling of relations between the countries. It should be recalled that a defense deal among Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom has enraged France, which has lost a lucrative submarine contract with Australia. The French company was unpleasantly surprised at this information as the vaccine, which is currently in clinical trials, has been tested and reviewed primarily in the UK. “This news came as a real surprise as the UK helped finance Valneva’s development and expand production,” Jean-Jacques Le Four, an analyst at Bryan Garnier said. Valneva SE’s shares have almost quadrupled in the past year due to high expectations for its vaccine. It differs from the others in that it uses the inactivated COVID-19 virus in its entirety and not just the spike protein. “We still see the value of the Valneva vaccine in the fight against COVID-19, but its place in the vaccine market is now much less clear,” Stifel analyst Max Herrmann said.
