Vaccine maker Valneva targets €85m in global offering

Valneva is seeking to raise up to €85m in its planned share offering as the French vaccine maker moves to capitalise on promising early-stage trial results for its Covid-19 jab.

The Paris-listed group, which last month said it would seek a dual listing in New York, set a price range on Wednesday of $24.04-$28.85 for each American Depositary Share and €10-€12 per ordinary share.

It announced the offering of more than 7m shares last month, saying it would use the proceeds, along with existing funds, to invest in three of its vaccine candidates, including €80m for its coronavirus jab.

Shares in the Paris-listed company, which have risen about 240 per cent in the past year, fell 5 per cent in morning trading to €12.90, giving it a market capitalisation of roughly €1.2bn.

Valneva’s US offering comes just a week after Vaccitech, the Oxford start-up that owns the platform behind the AstraZeneca vaccine, went public on the Nasdaq exchange. Vaccitech priced at the middle of its range, at $17 a share, but has since traded lower, closing at $13.52 on Tuesday.

Valneva has a deal worth up to €1.4bn to supply the UK government with at least 100m shots, which will be manufactured in Scotland. The first batch is not expected to be available until 2022.

But the company warned in its IPO filing that any restrictions on importing or exporting vaccines between the EU and the UK would be a “substantial risk” to its operation, because it plans to put the shots into vials and package them in the EU.

Its Covid-19 vaccine uses a more traditional approach than those already approved, containing a whole inactivated virus. This could be useful as variants emerge, because it teaches the immune system to recognise all parts of Sars-Cov-2, not just the spike protein.

In its phase 1 and 2 study, Valneva’s vaccine elicited more antibodies in the group given the highest dose than usually found in recovered Covid-19 patients. More than 90 per cent showed “significant” levels of antibodies to the virus.

The company last month started its phase 3 trial, comparing it with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, in 4,000 participants. Both have two doses and the aim of the trial, supported by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research, will be to compare immune responses two weeks after the second shot.