Transcript: Novavax Q2 2026 Earnings Conference Call

Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX ) reported second-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's second-quarter earnings call has been provided below. APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit to learn more.

Access the full call at Summary Full Transcript Jim, Operator Thank you for standing by, everyone. My name is Jim and I'll be your conference operator for today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Novavax second quarter 2026 financial results and operational highlights conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

After today's speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star and one again. Thank you.

It's now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Naina Zaman. You may begin. Naina Zaman, Investor Relations Good morning and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our second quarter financial results and operational highlights. Today, on August 6, 2026, a press release announcing our results is available on our website, and an audio archive of this conference call will be available on our website later today.

Before we begin with prepared remarks, I would like to remind you that this presentation includes forward-looking statements regarding Novavax's current expectations related to, but not limited to, its partnerships, market opportunities, and financial guidance. Our actual results may be materially different from such statements as detailed in the presentation. Discussions of non-GAAP figures and reconciliations to GAAP figures are available in our earnings press release, and descriptions of the risks and uncertainties associated with Novavax are included in our SEC filings. Both can be accessed through our website.

Joining me today are John Jacobs, our President and CEO, Jim Kelly, our Chief Financial Officer, Elaine O'Hara, Chief Strategy Officer, and Dr. Bob Walker, Head of R&D. I would now like to hand the call over to John. John C.

Jacobs, President & Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Naina, and good morning, everyone. In 2025 we set out to build a different kind of biotechnology company, one powered by partnering our technology, targeted and capital-efficient innovation, and a lean and agile operating model. Our ambition is a Novavax with multiple partners and products using our technology, creating both near- and long-term value while potentially having a meaningful impact on millions of lives around the world. Today, the momentum created by executing this new strategy is giving us the potential to have greater impact than ever before.

For example, four of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies now have licensing or material transfer agreements for Matrix-M. One of those companies is Pfizer, in a collaboration that could represent up to $500 million in potential development and commercial milestones and significant potential future royalties. In total, our license partners and MTA holders collectively have the rights to over 30 areas of experimentation across both infectious disease and oncology.

The collective utilization and experimentation with Novavax technology potentially opens the door to a substantial portion of a market projected to reach $100 billion, spanning infectious disease, oncology, vaccines, and cancer immunotherapeutics. In the second quarter we accelerated our momentum, and today we're excited to share several important updates. First, we continue to execute well on our Sanofi partnership, with Sanofi's strong and growing commitment to Nuvaxovid and our technology.

In fact, Sanofi has confirmed to us their intent to be among the first movers in the combination vaccine market and that they are in advanced discussions with regulators regarding Phase 3 study timing for their program using Nuvaxovid and their own flu vaccines. We're pleased to hear this confirmation and we are optimistic about the growing potential of our opportunity as partners. S. or Europe will trigger a $125 million milestone payment to Novavax.

Additionally, progress continues on the manufacturing tech transfer to Sanofi, which comes with an associated $75 million milestone upon completion and is expected by mid-2027. S. marketing campaign and launches in additional international markets. We're excited for the potential of this work to help increase awareness of Nuvaxovid and build meaningful market share over time.

Taken together, this means we now have line of sight to an additional $200 million in potential near-term milestones on top of the more than $1 billion in value we have already realized through a combination of upfront payments, milestones and royalties, and cost savings related to this partnership. Second, we're seeing growing interest in Matrix-M and increasing progress across our broader partnering portfolio. A growing body of scientific evidence is being generated by Novavax, our partners, and MTA collaborators in oncology and infectious disease targets, and we're excited about the progress that's being made.

Third, our R&D investments are selective and strategic, and they're designed with three goals in mind: to build upon the scientific evidence that makes our technology increasingly compelling to both current and prospective partners; to broaden the utility of our Matrix-M technology platform; and to create new, innovative vaccines that have the potential to stimulate additional partnering opportunities and drive value for Novavax and our stakeholders. Later in the call, Bob will discuss the momentum we're seeing across our R&D portfolio, including the growing body of work supporting Matrix-M's utility in oncology.

And finally, we're delivering on our commitment to transform Novavax into a leaner, more capital-efficient company. To date, we've reduced our operating expenses by more than 80%, and we remain on track to achieve an approximately 90% reduction from our peak. Importantly, we didn't just cut — we focused, streamlining our company while at the same time preserving the capabilities we believe are needed to enable value creation. Taken together, the progress the team and I are sharing today reinforces our belief that the future is bright for Novavax.

We continue to successfully execute on and deepen our existing partnerships, to take steps towards initiating new partnerships, to strengthen our technology platform, and to deliver with financial discipline. We remain confident in the opportunities ahead and believe we're well positioned to create meaningful value for patients and shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Elaine to further discuss the progress we're making across our partnerships and business development activities. Elaine.

Elaine O'Hara (Chief Strategy Officer) Thanks, John. As discussed, one of the clearest indicators that our strategy is working is the momentum we're seeing across our partnerships. We are focused on two objectives: maximizing value from our existing collaborations while building the next generation of licensing opportunities. Today, I'll provide an update on both, beginning with Sanofi.

COVID-19 continues to present a meaningful public health challenge, particularly among older adults and other high-risk populations, where we see the highest need and the highest vaccination rates, and it remains a significant commercial opportunity as the second biggest infectious disease market behind influenza. Building on last year's COVID-19 launch in the US, Sanofi is preparing a broader commercial effort following Nuvaxovid's first full year of approval. The campaign will be supported by pharmacy activation and direct-to-consumer outreach internationally.

Sanofi plans to expand availability in additional markets this season, including the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada. Results from the Phase 4 COMPARE study, a large head-to-head evaluation of Nuvaxovid and a next-generation mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, demonstrated Nuvaxovid's favorable tolerability profile. Together, we believe these developments provide healthcare providers and patients with important information to make more informed vaccine choices. Beyond the commercial COVID opportunity, we remain encouraged by the progress of Sanofi's combined COVID-19/influenza vaccine program.

Recent external developments, including the European Commission's approval of the first COVID/influenza combination vaccine, reinforce our belief that the regulatory pathway for this category is becoming more clear. As a reminder, Sanofi previously reported positive Phase 1/2 data for its CIC candidate utilizing Nuvaxovid in combination with their flu vaccines. And as John said, we are encouraged by Sanofi's recent confirmation that they are in advanced discussions with regulators and they intend to be one of the first movers in the combination vaccine segment.

So, to reiterate, a Phase 3 study initiation in either the US or EU will trigger a $125 million milestone payment to Novavax. Finally, on the Sanofi partnership, Sanofi's BARDA-funded H5 pandemic influenza vaccine candidate, which includes Matrix-M, was recently granted US FDA Fast Track designation, so tremendous progress continues with Sanofi. Beyond Sanofi, we're pleased with the continued execution across our broader portfolio of licensed partnerships.

Work with Pfizer, Takeda, and the Serum Institute continues to progress well and demonstrates the broad applicability of the Matrix-M platform across multiple vaccine programs and of our technology platform more generally across multiple markets. Turning to our Matrix-M collaboration activity today, our existing license partners and MTA holders collectively have the rights to over 30 areas of exploration across both infectious disease and oncology, reflecting the broad applicability of Matrix-M and our technology platform across a diverse range of vaccine programs.

While it will take time for partners to complete experiments before these efforts potentially progress into full licensing agreement discussions, we're encouraged by the momentum we're seeing. Materials have been delivered, studies are underway, and partner engagement continues to deepen. What stands out most is both the quality and diversity of the organizations evaluating Matrix-M. We are actively collaborating with four of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies through license agreements and/or MTAs, and we are also seeing growing interest from innovative biotechnology companies, reinforcing the broad appeal of Matrix-M across the industry.

One area where we're seeing particularly strong momentum is oncology. During the second quarter, we executed an MTA with a leading global pharmaceutical company who is also a top player in immuno-oncology related to therapeutic cancer vaccine applications, and we continue to see interest from additional companies in this area. From a partnering perspective, we're encouraged not only by the caliber of these companies, but also at the pace at which therapeutic cancer vaccine programs potentially can generate meaningful data and reach key development milestones, different to infectious disease vaccines.

Therapeutic cancer vaccines generally enter clinical testing in patients with active disease, allowing developers to access meaningful data on shorter timelines. Combined with expedited regulatory pathways in areas of high unmet need, we see real potential for these factors to accelerate partnering decisions. Just as importantly, this is an area of profound unmet need, and we are inspired by the hope that next-generation therapeutic cancer vaccines represent for patients and their families. The level of engagement we're seeing reinforces our belief that Matrix-M has the potential to become a broadly applicable vaccine adjuvant platform.

Every new collaboration has the potential to expand scientific evidence supporting the platform, strengthen its value, and create additional opportunities for future partnerships. That's the virtuous cycle that we believe will continue to differentiate Novavax. Now I will pass it over to Bob to discuss the scientific rationale behind these programs in greater detail. ROBERT E.

WALKER, Executive Vice President and Head of Research and Development Thanks, Elaine. Our R&D strategy is designed around a simple principle: every investment we make should create future opportunities to facilitate partnership discussions while strengthening the scientific foundation of Matrix-M and our full technology platform. We're increasingly excited about the potential for Matrix-M in oncology, which we believe represents one of the most compelling long-term opportunities for our adjuvant. Therapeutic cancer vaccines are experiencing renewed momentum as advances in neoantigen discovery, tumor profiling, and antigen design accelerate the field.

At the same time, many developers continue to face a common challenge of generating strong, durable cellular immune responses that are critical for effective antitumor activity. We believe that our unique saponin adjuvant Matrix-M has a differentiated tolerability profile and the potential to stimulate robust cellular immune responses for oncology vaccines used alone or with innate immune stimulators such as TLR agonists. A recently published study by Novavax in NPJ Vaccines, a Nature Portfolio journal, demonstrated that our Matrix-M adjuvant supports antigen cross-presentation and subsequent downstream CD8 T-cell activation.

Achieving strong CD8 T-cell activation is considered an important factor for many therapeutic cancer vaccine approaches. Additionally, researchers at Stanford have published their work in Science Advances showing that saponin adjuvants alone or combined with innate immune stimulators such as TLR agonists can further enhance the magnitude, breadth, durability, and quality of immune responses. Put simply, we believe Matrix-M helps the immune system better recognize and respond to disease-related targets.

Its ability to engage the innate immune system, activate immune cells within the draining lymph node, enhance antigen presentation, and promote Th1-biased and CD8-positive T-cell responses gives it a differentiated mechanism of action that we believe is highly relevant for next-generation cancer vaccines. Our own internal research has continued to generate encouraging immunologic data supporting further evaluation of Matrix-M across multiple oncology settings. In parallel, as Elaine discussed earlier, our oncology collaborations should provide additional data sets generated independently by our partners, further expanding our understanding of the platform.

Taken together, we believe the combination of published mechanistic evidence, emerging preclinical data, and partner-generated research provides an increasingly compelling scientific rationale for Matrix-M in oncology. Beyond oncology, we've continued to advance a focused internal pipeline that addresses significant unmet medical needs while strengthening the value of our platform. During the quarter, we made meaningful progress in the development of our differentiated multivalent C. difficile vaccine candidate, which has the potential to cover the vast majority of circulating C.

diff clades and ribotypes. This progress includes initiating GMP manufacturing and pre-IND interactions with the FDA, keeping us on track for potential clinical entry as early as 2027. More broadly, as we have shared previously, some of our own internal preclinical studies on the combination of Matrix-M with licensed flu, RSV, and pneumococcal vaccines produced encouraging results that have already helped generate partnership interest. Building on that, we are continuing our comprehensive program to evaluate the potential ability of Matrix-M to enhance performance in a broad array of licensed vaccines in big commercial markets.

As we previously shared, our ambition is to generate a library of data in a cost-efficient manner to show the potential of Matrix-M across significant vaccine programs in a methodical manner, and we expect to complete the next tranche of this work by early next year. The goal is to stimulate new and additional partner interest in the applicability of Matrix-M in their vaccine portfolios. Importantly, oncology, C. diff, and our clinical and preclinical pipeline exemplify our broader strategy.

Every program we advance, whether internally or through our partners, expands the scientific foundation of Matrix-M and our vaccine technology. With the growing partner interest in Matrix-M, we're encouraged by what is today one of the industry's most comprehensive data sets across mechanistic biology, preclinical research, clinical development, and commercial use. That growing body of evidence does more than advance our scientific understanding. It increases confidence in the platform while potentially lowering the barrier for future partners and reinforcing what continues to differentiate Matrix-M and our full technology platform.

We believe that this expanding scientific foundation represents a durable competitive advantage, one that becomes stronger with every new study, every new collaboration, and every new application of the platform. As a physician and researcher who has spent most of his career working on vaccine development, I believe we're entering an exciting new chapter. Seeing the potential of our technology in new infectious disease targets and the expansion of Matrix-M into areas with significant unmet need, such as oncology, represents an opportunity to improve the lives of even more patients and make an even greater impact on public health.