Novavax NVAX lowered its annual revenue forecast on Tuesday, citing lower-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine before the company signed the rights to sell the shot to French drugmaker Sanofi 
SAN delivers.
Shares of the American biotech company fell 3 percent to $8.73.
The U.S. vaccine maker now expects annual sales of $175 million to $225 million for its COVID vaccine, its only product on the market, rather than $275 million to $375 million as previously estimated.
“We were hoping to achieve a larger market share this year,” Novavax CEO John Jacobs said in an interview, adding that the company averages about 3 percent of the market weekly.
If the sales trend doesn’t turn positive in the current quarter, Jacobs said, “we would be below what we were hoping for in the U.S., so we revised that number downward out of caution.”
Jacobs said on a conference call after the results that the total U.S. market for the 2024-25 vaccination season could be about 40 million to 50 million COVID shots, based on current trends.
The company also lowered its revenue guidance when it released its second-quarter results in August (link).
Novavax’s COVID vaccine posted third-quarter revenue of $38.21 million, above analysts’ average expectations of $29 million, according to LSEG data.
Total revenue for the quarter was $84.51 million, beating analysts’ expectations of $65.78 million but down nearly 55 percent from a year ago.
Novavax also lowered its forecast for total revenue in 2024 to $650 million to $700 million, from a previous range of $700 million to $800 million. At the beginning of the year, the company expected sales of up to $1 billion.
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Jacobs acknowledged that Novavax does not have the market power and scale of French drugmaker Sanofi, with which the company signed a licensing agreement (link) earlier this year to distribute its Covid vaccine in several markets, including the US and Europe, from 2025 sell.
Novavax is struggling to compete with rival vaccine maker Moderna 
MRNA and Pfizer 
Keeping pace with PFE, which reported more than $3 billion in total sales for its mRNA COVID shots in the third quarter.
The company is banking on revenue from the Sanofi deal and vaccines in development, including an experimental COVID-flu combination shot that Novavax said received the green light to resume clinical testing from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week (link ).
Novavax does not expect any significant impact from the clinical halt and plans to begin the late-stage trial as soon as possible.
Novavax reported a net loss of $121 million in the quarter, narrower than the $133 million loss estimated by analysts. The company said it ended the quarter with $1 billion in cash and receivables.
