Intervacc share traded down -36%, a reaction to a document published last week by the Swedish Medical Products Agency that included a description and assessment of Strangvac. It took a negative stance in the assessment, suggesting that "vaccines does not have a meaningful place in management of strangles". This claim was based on that Strangvac seemingly has similar disease protection to other (unsuccessful) vaccines, and that “vaccinated horses may still be infected and spread the disease”. It also highlighted that there is limited data, with approval based only on ‘laboratory studies’ and no field studies thus far.
The conclusion could be considered overly negative
Based on the arguments put forward, the conclusion drawn by the agency could be seen as drastic. While Strangvac performs similar to a previous vaccine (MSD Equilis StrepE) on disease protection, Strangvac has benefits of fewer side effects and easier administration (intramuscular vs. horse jaw). It could also be considered that the 86% disease protection that was basis for the EMA approval was with 2 doses, while 3 doses has shown up to ~95% protection. Furthermore, the statement that infected horses may still get the disease is not new and is generally true for all vaccines. The agency taking an overly negative view, could be interpreted as worries of horse owners becoming lenient in infection control following vaccination. However, it is important to consider that Strangvac does not aim to eradicate Strangles or be a replacement for infection control measures, but rather reduce outbrakes. That said, a cautious intial view is not unwarranted with existing data only covering protection from induced bacteria exposure, rather than community transmission.
KOL feedback will drive uptake following Q1’22 launch
Intervacc recently announced that it expects sales launch of Strangvac in January 2022. An important factor that will imapct the uptake of Strangvac will be gaining support from KOLs. A predicate for Strangles are vaccines against equine influenzas, where vaccination rates range from 40-70% in various European markets.
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