VXRT - Why Vaxart Stock Skyrocketed Today
Shares of Vaxart (NASDAQ: VXRT) soared on Friday after the biotech company said that its oral COVID-19 vaccine had been selected to receive funding from a federal government program aiming to deliver hundreds of millions of safe and effective coronavirus vaccine doses to Americans by January 2021.
As of 1 p.m. EDT, Vaxart's stock was up 66% after surging as much as 128% earlier in the day.
Vaxart said its experimental vaccine, which is administered by tablet rather than by injection, will participate in a nonhuman primate (NHP) challenge study organized and funded by Operation Warp Speed, a program created by the Trump administration to "accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics," according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.