In this Motley Fool Live video recorded on April 28, 2021, Motley Fool contributors Keith Speights and Brian Orelli discuss whether Ocugen has a real shot at becoming a winner in the U.S.
Keith Speights: It looks like Pfizer and BioNTech are very close to finalizing a deal with the European Union to supply up to 1.8 billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine through 2023, so it’s a multiyear deal.
Johnson & Johnson, who’s run into some problems. AstraZeneca has a deal, although their vaccine has not been authorized yet in the U.S.
Actually, it’s not really the company’s vaccine, but there’s a vaccine called Covaxin that Ocugen is partnering with India-based company Bharat Biotech.
Whether it’ll need vaccines in 2022, 2023, probably depends a lot on the variants and whether the current vaccines protect against the variants, whether Covaxin protects against the variants, which I don’t think we know yet.
The data for Covaxin so far is pretty good at 78% efficacy and 100% protection against severe disease, so those are maybe a little bit lower than the mRNA ones, but in line with Johnson & Johnson.
My guess is that Ocugen is probably not going to be able to get authorization based on the clinical trial that was run outside the U.S.
You could see the prospects for Covaxin winning authorizations and ultimately approvals in other countries throughout the world.
I think the challenge, and not just for Ocugen, I think for any late-stage or late comer to the U.S.
government is going to go ahead and start lining up supply deals for 2022, maybe go beyond like the European Union did, going into 2023.
I mean, the other thing is that the government may start shifting more toward a flu-like system, where the insurance companies are on the hook for the vaccines instead of the government.
But yeah, I think for the near term, though, companies like Ocugen and others who are later to the party are going to have a difficult time in the U.S.