Shares of Vir Biotechnology (VIR) are skyrocketing.
At the moment, shares are up 16%, or $6.50 a share on heavy volume of 5.77 million shares, as compared to its daily average of 997,195.
All after HC Wainwright analyst Patrick Trucchio raised the firm’s price target from $135 to $200 a share, with a buy rating. He expects to see a “robust” COVID-19 antiviral market, with Vir as a leader, reports TheFly.com.
“Several recent updates suggest that Vir and its collaboration partner GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are likely to maintain a top-tier COVID-19 antiviral franchise, led at first by sotrovimab, ‘for the foreseeable future,’” Trucchio said, as also quoted by TheFly.com.
Helping, GSK and VIR recently announced U.S. government contracts totaling about $1 billion to purchase sotrovimab for early treatment of COVID-19. The US FDA also granted Emergency Use Authorization in May 20221.
“It certainly is an effective antibody against Covid, but also against SARS, also against many other coronaviruses,” Vir President and CEO George Scangos told CNBC. “So not only, I think, do we have an antibody that stands up well to all the variants received from Covid, but potentially can help in future coronavirus pandemics as well.”
