{"id":740650,"date":"2026-04-20T10:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T10:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/740650\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T10:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T10:24:12","slug":"is-shah-capitals-criticism-of-novavax-fair-a-wall-street-analyst-weighs-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/740650\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Shah Capital&#8217;s Criticism of Novavax Fair? A Wall Street Analyst Weighs In"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2024, Shah Capital, a hedge fund in North Carolina, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globenewswire.com\/news-release\/2024\/05\/20\/2884727\/0\/en\/Shah-Capital-Withdraws-Proxy-Campaign-Against-Re-Election-of-Directors-at-Novavax-s-2024-Annual-Meeting.html\" id=\"https:\/\/www.globenewswire.com\/news-release\/2024\/05\/20\/2884727\/0\/en\/Shah-Capital-Withdraws-Proxy-Campaign-Against-Re-Election-of-Directors-at-Novavax-s-2024-Annual-Meeting.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">withdrew from its proxy fight<\/a> against Novavax\u2019s board of directors when the vaccine maker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/novavax-and-sanofi-announce-co-exclusive-licensing-agreement-to-co-commercialize-covid-19-vaccine-and-develop-novel-covid-19-influenza-combination-vaccines-302142096.html\" id=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/novavax-and-sanofi-announce-co-exclusive-licensing-agreement-to-co-commercialize-covid-19-vaccine-and-develop-novel-covid-19-influenza-combination-vaccines-302142096.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">announced a billion-dollar deal with Sanofi<\/a>. At the time, Shah Capital signaled that backing down \u201cdoes not mean our engagement is at an end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sure enough, less than two years later, the activist investment firm continues to be a headache. Earlier this month, Himanshu Shah, founder of the eponymous Shah Capital, <a href=\"https:\/\/medcitynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2026\/04\/Shah-Capital-NVAX-BOD-Letter-13D-Apr-2026.docx.pdf\" id=\"https:\/\/medcitynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2026\/04\/Shah-Capital-NVAX-BOD-Letter-13D-Apr-2026.docx.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">fired off a letter<\/a> signaling deep dissatisfaction with the Gaithersburg, Maryland company\u2019s financial performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a large and long-term 9% shareholder, we are writing to formally notify you of our intent to vote AGAINST the re-election of board nominees and AGAINST the executive compensation package at the upcoming 2026 Annual Meeting. Your tenure has overseen a DESTRUCTION of shareholder value \u2014 a direct result of chronic operational shortcomings and failures on fiduciary duty,\u201d Shah\u2019s letter, dated April 8, read.<\/p>\n<p>The letter highlighted several failures including the following:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Novavax\u2019s 2024 Sanofi partnership is not yet fruitful \u2014 in fact, Shah said that last year\u2019s meager $22 million sales of Nuvaxovid, the non-mRNA Covid vaccine, which Sanofi took over after the 2024 agreement, is \u201cunfathomable\u201d and \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The company has not controlled costs and issued a pessimistic 2026 revenue outlook.<\/li>\n<li>Novavax suffers from low institutional credibility leading many investors to hold short positions on its stock, despite the company\u2019s partnerships with <a href=\"https:\/\/ir.novavax.com\/press-releases\/2026-01-20-Novavax-Announces-Entering-into-a-License-Agreement-with-Pfizer\" id=\"https:\/\/ir.novavax.com\/press-releases\/2026-01-20-Novavax-Announces-Entering-into-a-License-Agreement-with-Pfizer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Pfizer<\/a> and Sanofi.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But is the criticism fair? <\/p>\n<p>After all, Novavax \u2014 whose stock price has plummeted to under $10 from a high of about $290 in 2021 \u2014 is not the only Covid vaccine maker that has wrestled with lower demand for its product. Moderna, which became a household name during the pandemic for its mRNA vaccine, saw its stock price swoon from a whopping $450 in 2021 to the mid-$20 range in late 2025, though the share price has since doubled to more than $50. BioNTech, which collaborated with Pfizer on their Covid mRNA vaccine, saw its stock price drop from $389 in 2021 to nearly $80 in 2025, before regaining some steam \u2014 it trades over $100 today. Despite the latter two company\u2019s stock price is far off from their pandemic-prompted highs, no activist investor is attacking Moderna or BioNTech \u2014 at least not publicly.<\/p>\n<p>One Wall Street analyst who has a \u201cbuy\u201d rating on Novavax\u2019s stock acknowledged that Shah\u2019s criticisms are not unfounded though he didn\u2019t fully agree with all the criticisms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve seen Moderna\u2019s stock price, you\u2019ve seen BioNTech,\u201d said Mayank Mamtani, senior vice president and group head of healthcare at B. Riley Securities in an interview last week. \u201cBut again, Moderna and BioNTech have pivoted. Now they\u2019re pipelines to oncology. And we have a very actionable catalyst for both those companies. And that is not the case \u2014 I think that is where the disconnect is with Novavax.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that Novavax has good partnerships with Pfizer and Sanofi but there isn\u2019t great visibility with how things are progressing there. Sanofi has licensed Novavax\u2019s Matrix-M technology and is developing the Covid-19-Influenza-Combination (CIC) vaccine. Mamtani said that Sanofi has publicly said that the the CIC vaccine will be one of the company\u2019s top three products that could in the future help to offset sales of  its blockbuster drug Dupixent when the expected loss of exclusivity occurs. Novavax stands to get royalties from the sale of this vaccine once clinical trials are done and the product is commercialized with FDA\u2019s blessing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut [Sanofi has] not made any such announcements that we\u2019re going to Phase 3 and we are going to provide data next year, [or] we\u2019re going to file,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that\u2019s what we are waiting for. That\u2019s the big catalyst.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, in his April 9 research note, Mamtani stressed that once Sanofi provides input on Phase 3 study design and execution, Novavax will be able to earn a $125 million milestone payment as per their agreement. But when Sanofi obliges the market with this information is that company\u2019s prerogative \u2014 which, as Mamtani noted, is \u201clargely independent of Novavax\u2019s governance situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This notwithstanding, does he agree with Shah\u2019s call for changes to the board? In his letter, Shah recommended Novavax\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.novavax.com\/leadership\" id=\"https:\/\/www.novavax.com\/leadership\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">board size<\/a> be reduced to five members from eight. He also urged the election of \u201cnew members with emphasis on pragmatic entrepreneurial experience\u201d to turn around the financial fortunes of Novavax.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the governance can improve,\u201d Mamtani said.<\/p>\n<p>He wouldn\u2019t comment on individual directors but implied fresh blood was needed. In his letter, Shah went so far as to say that Novavax\u2019s current equity valuation \u201cshows that its leadership is pursuing tenures and not shareholder value.\u201d Now, to be fair to Novavax, the company did add two members to its board in 2025, though one director, Richard Douglas, has held a board seat for more than a quarter of a century.<\/p>\n<p>While tacitly agreeing with Shah on the make-up of the board, Mamtani, who has a price target of $18 for Novavax\u2019s stock, disagrees with Shah on cost-cutting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll be fair, Himanshu is pushing them to cut costs, but they\u2019ll lose good talent \u2026 especially when they\u2019re trying to portray a good image to Pharma that they\u2019re a stable company,\u201d Mamtani declared, noting the relationships with partners like Sanofi and Pfizer. \u201cThe core DNA of the company is damaged, and it becomes a dysfunctional organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But ultimately, he does believe Novavax\u2019s stock price will go up, even if slower than what Shah would like to see. For the time being, Mamtani is reassured by the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/ir.novavax.com\/press-releases\/2026-03-30-Novavax-Appoints-Dr-Robert-Walker-as-Executive-Vice-President-and-Head-of-Research-Development\" id=\"https:\/\/ir.novavax.com\/press-releases\/2026-03-30-Novavax-Appoints-Dr-Robert-Walker-as-Executive-Vice-President-and-Head-of-Research-Development\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">R&amp;D leadership consolidation under Dr. Robert Walker<\/a> that will reduce costs. <\/p>\n<p>Photo: champc, Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May 2024, Shah Capital, a hedge fund in North Carolina, withdrew from its proxy fight against Novavax\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":740651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[305492,210,1141,1142,28566,30898,178212,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-740650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-biopharma-nl","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-novavax","tag-pfizer","tag-sanofi","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116436550638289417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}