Novavax price target raised to $74 from $61 at B. Riley FBR

B. Riley FBR analyst Mayank Mamtani raised the firm’s price target on Novavax to $74 from $61 and reiterates a Buy rating on the shares. The stock closed Thursday up 41c to $44.66. The company announced last night that the U.S. Department of Defense has granted it $60M to support the production of NVX-CoV2373 in the U.S., Mamtani tells investors in a research note titled “U.S. DoD Contract Locked In; Is Operation Warp Speed Next?” This development is in “sharp contrast” to the New York Times report this week that excluded Novavax from the list of five finalists chosen by the Trump administration via “Operation Warp Speed,” says Mamtani. In fact, the Department of Defense contract strengthens the analyst’s conviction in a “sizeable funding” to be secured from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which he notes has ~$4B left over from the original $6.5B allocation under the CARES Act for COVID-19 vaccine development and manufacturing. Mamtani recommends using the recent weakness in Novavax shares as a buying opportunity.