CureVac NV is an “undervalued” buying opportunity, according to UBS. Analyst Eliana Merle upgraded shares of the German biotech company to buy from neutral on Thursday and more than doubled her price target after it released positive preliminary data on its mRNA vaccines. CureVac said this month that it plans to conduct additional patient trials of its mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 and influenza. “As we noted after the Jan. 6 Ph1 data, we see the initial clinical data from the 2nd gene platform as a major milestone and clarifying event, with preliminary data released from the company’s Ph1 studies of CV0501 in Covid and FLU SV mRNA in influenza.” ” wrote Merle on Thursday. “In our view, as the first data on the immunogenicity of a gene 2 platform in humans, this is a major inflection point for this story and suggests a potentially competitive mRNA platform compared to mRNA counterparts,” added Merle. CureVac debuted publicly in 2020 at $16 per share and raised $245 million in its initial public offering to fund research into treatments for diseases including the coronavirus. Bank of America, Jefferies and Credit Suisse led the IPO. But since then, the stock has fallen more than 57% in 2021 and 82% in 2022. But CureVac is up more than 50% this year, and the UBS analyst expects the stock to rise further. Her price target of $18, up from $8, means the stock could rise roughly 90% from Wednesday’s close. Shares of CureVac briefly rallied nearly 13% before pulling back on Thursday. CVAC 1Y mountain CureVac slumped in 2022 but rallied in 2023. Additionally, with a market cap of roughly $2 billion, UBS says CureVac is an “undervalued” story compared to Moderna and BioNTech, which have market caps of roughly $76 billion and $35 billion, respectively. “We see the stock up ~50% since the data in January, but we think the stock trades higher with more data/trial starts and as awareness of this under-the-radar mRNA story builds. We note that expect more Ph1 data in the near future,” wrote a UBS analyst. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
