They were images that the world had not seen for a long time: 60,000 spectators following a football match, tightly packed together and without face masks. UEFA was able to fill Wembley Stadium in London to 75% of its capacity for the two semi-finals and the final of the European Championship. The enthusiasm of many fans for this huge step towards more normality met with some scepticism, however. Critics complained that, despite the existing hygiene requirements, the games were mitigating against the successful containment of the coronavirus pandemic. This is all the more so given that Great Britain is struggling hugely with the dangerous Delta variant, which has now been shown to account for 98% of all new infections. At the same time, the 7-day incidence on the islands climbed from about 60 to more than 300 during the European Championship. Nevertheless, the number of coronavirus-related hospitalisation has risen far less strongly.
In this regard Great Britain is profiting from the relatively advanced progress of the vaccination campaign. According to figures from the "Our World in Data" portal, every second Briton is now completely immunised against Covid-19, while another 17% of the population have received at least one dose. This puts the United Kingdom ahead of the major industrialised nations in the vaccination race (see graph). That global "jabs" have been produced at all is thanks to the pharmaceutical industry. As the corona virus was spreading ever more widely across the world in early 2020, the sector immediately set about searching for a vaccine. In several cases this research work led to astonishingly rapid success, with BioNTech and Moderna in particular attracting attention. The two biotech companies developed vaccines based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) within the space of a few months. This gives the immune system a sort of plan for building the antigen, allowing the virus to be fought quickly and in a targeted manner following an infection. The pair thus gave the world the possibility of a way out of the pandemic.
At the same time, this research success hoisted the two biotech firms into new spheres. Shares in BioNTech – the Mainz-based company is collaborating with the US pharmaceutical group Pfizer on its Covid-19 vaccine – have got around 460% more expensive since the start of 2020. Over the same period Moderna, which is also listed on the Nasdaq, has posted a more than tenfold increase (see chart). In addition to the two mRNA vaccines, there are also vector-based ones, primary among them the drugs from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. But there have been setbacks in Covid-19 research as well. Take the example of CureVac: in clinical trials the vaccine developed by this German biotech firm achieved an effectiveness of only 48% against Covid-19 of all severities and across all age groups. By comparison, the vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna each offer an efficacy of around 95%. It is all the more important that these two companies continue to be able to meet the enormous demand. "The short supply of items such as medical glass are creating bottlenecks," say the analysts at Swissquote.
At the same time, they indicate that a just under 8 billion doses in total will be needed in order to vaccinate the entire world once. So far, 3.4 billion portions of the various active agents have been delivered. "This very new but unbelievably important market sector is predicted to reach an annual USbn 25 valuation by 2024," the experts of the direct broker explain. The pandemic has opened up further business opportunities for the pharmaceutical industry. "Demand for molecular testing and antibody testing solutions has soared," the Swissquote research team says. Roche has played an active part in the fight against coronavirus right from the start. The most recent success of the Basel company is the emergency approval of a PCR test in the USA. According to the group, the product delivers a result in the diagnosis of symptomatic and asymptomatic Covid-19 cases within 20 minutes. The bottom line is that the pharmaceutical industry has gained further importance during the corona crisis and demonstrated not only its innovative capacity and flexibility, but also enormous stock market potential.
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