The FTSE 100 surged on Monday as a strong start to the trading session was boosted by a positive update from a US company working on a COVID-19 vaccine.
The morning had started with optimism around the reopening of economies which was accentuated when US-based Moderna said they have received positive early signs from a coronavirus vaccine trial.
“These interim Phase 1 data, while early, demonstrate that vaccination with mRNA-1273 elicits an immune response of the magnitude caused by natural infection starting with a dose as low as 25 µg,” said Tal Zaks, Chief Medical Officer at Moderna.
“When combined with the success in preventing viral replication in the lungs of a pre-clinical challenge model at a dose that elicited similar levels of neutralizing antibodies, these data substantiate our belief that mRNA-1273 has the potential to prevent COVID-19 disease and advance our ability to select a dose for pivotal trials.”
“With today’s positive interim Phase 1 data and the positive data in the mouse challenge model, the Moderna team continues to focus on moving as fast as safely possible to start our pivotal Phase 3 study in July and, if successful, file a BLA,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer at Moderna.
“We are investing to scale up manufacturing so we can maximize the number of doses we can produce to help protect as many people as we can from SARS-CoV-2.”
Despite the positive update from Moderna, the vaccine still has a number hurdles to full approval and a global roll out will take many months, even if it is approved.
Nonetheless, equity markets soared on the news.
Connor Campbell, analyst and Spreadex noted:
“Vaccine news is sort of the holy grail of market-boosters at the moment, even if headlines often obscure the timelines regarding the production of such preparations,” said Connor Campbell
“The Dow Jones galloped out of the date, greedily taking back 670 points. That was enough to lift the index past 24350, around 1400 points off of the lows incurred last Thursday.”
“In turn this transformed a very strong European session into something more spectacular. A 200 point surge for the FTSE saw it touch its fingers to 6000, while a giddy 4.6% increase for the DAX sent the German bourse back above 10900.”
The FTSE 100 was trading above 6,000 as we moved towards the close in London.
