FILE – In this Nov. 9, 2020, file photo, pedestrians walk past Pfizer world headquarters in New York. Pfizer announced Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020, more results in its ongoing coronavirus vaccine study that suggest the shots are 95% effective a month after the first dose. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
One of the vaccines in Canada’s COVID-19 arsenal is another step closer to approval, after Pfizer reported more results from its clinical trials Wednesday.
The company said new test results show its coronavirus vaccine is 95 per cent effective, is safe and also protects older people most at risk of dying — the last data needed to seek emergency use of limited shot supplies as the catastrophic outbreak worsens across the globe.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech just last week estimated the vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective after 94 infections had been counted in a study that included 44,000 people. With the new announcement, the company now has accumulated 170 infections in the study and said only eight of them occurred in volunteers who got the actual vaccine rather than a dummy shot. One of those eight developed severe disease, the company said.
“This is an extraordinarily strong protection,” Dr. Ugur Sahin, BioNTech’s CEO and co-founder, told The Associated Press.
The companies have not yet released detailed data on its study, and results have not been analyzed by independent experts. Also still to be determined are important questions such as how long protection lasts and whether people might need boosters.
Pfizer said it is preparing within days to formally ask U.S. regulators to allow emergency use of the vaccine.
Pfizer applied to Health Canada for approval of the vaccine Oct. 9, and will submit the latest data to continue that process. Vaccines must be reviewed and authorized by the federal health department before they can be used in Canada. Health Canada is encouraging vaccine makers to submit for approval before their Phase 3 trials are done, so the approval process that normally takes up to a year can be finished faster.
Pfizer is also undergoing similar “rolling submissions” for approval with regulators in Europe and the United Kingdom.
AstraZeneca and Moderna have also submitted their vaccines for parallel review to Health Canada. All three are among the seven vaccine candidates Canada has contracts to buy on the understanding the doses will only be delivered if Health Canada green-lights the vaccine.
Earlier this week Moderna, Inc. announced that its experimental vaccine appears to be 94.5 per cent effective after an interim analysis of its late-stage study.
Similar results from two vaccines both made with a brand-new technology — using a snippet of the genetic code of the coronavirus to train the body to recognize if the real virus comes along — likely will add to experts’ reassurance about the novel approach.
The companies didn’t disclose safety details but said no serious vaccine side effects have been reported, with the most common problem being fatigue after the second vaccine dose, affecting about 4% of participants.
Canada has contracts to get 20 million doses from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, with options to get up to 56 million more from Pfizer and 36 million more from Moderna. All three require would require an individual to get two doses of the vaccine, several weeks apart.
Canada has contracts for four other vaccines but none of those companies have yet requested approval from Health Canada.
The timeline for when the doses will actually come has always been murky. The federal government has been saying it is likely in the first quarter of 2021 but the specific timing depends on if and when they are approved.
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said in Queen’s Park Wednesday that Canada was supposed to get four million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, and two million of Moderna’s in the first three months of next year. She said Ontario is to get 40 per cent of those doses.
Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu refused to confirm that however, saying on Parliament Hill that Ottawa would work out distribution to the provinces to make sure every Canadian gets access.
“There are a number of steps to go through before we actually get to the point of distribution,” Hajdu said.
Canada is trying to be ready to roll out the vaccine as soon as it gets approved, including buying millions of syringes, needles, bandages and the like, and most recently signing two contracts to buy freezers to store the vaccine. Pfizer’s vaccine has to be stored at -70 C, while Moderna’s requires temperatures of at least -20 C. Procurement Minister Anita Anand said Canada is going to buy 26 freezers that can be as cold as -80 C and 100 that can be up to -20 C.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they expect to produce up to 50 million vaccine doses globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
U.S. officials have said they hope to have about 20 million vaccine doses each from Moderna and Pfizer available for distribution in late December. The first shots are expected to be offered to vulnerable groups like medical and nursing home workers, and people with serious health conditions.
Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended similar priorities be made for the first doses of vaccine here.
Netflix (NFLX) stock slid as much as 9.6% Friday after the company gave a second quarter revenue forecast that missed estimates and announced it would stop reporting quarterly subscriber metrics closely watched by Wall Street.
On Thursday, Netflix guided to second quarter revenue of $9.49 billion, a miss compared to consensus estimates of $9.51 billion.
The company said it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers starting next year, along with average revenue per member, or ARM.
“As we’ve evolved our pricing and plans from a single to multiple tiers with different price points depending on the country, each incremental paid membership has a very different business impact,” the company said.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings that beat across the board on Thursday, with another 9 million-plus subscribers added in the quarter.
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Subscriber additions of 9.3 million beat expectations of 4.8 million and followed the 13 million net additions the streamer added in the fourth quarter. The company added 1.7 million paying users in Q1 2023.
Revenue beat Bloomberg consensus estimates of $9.27 billion to hit $9.37 billion in the quarter, an increase of 14.8% compared to the same period last year as the streamer leaned on revenue initiatives like its crackdown on password-sharing and ad-supported tier, in addition to the recent price hikes on certain subscription plans.
Netflix’s stock has been on a tear in recent months, with shares currently trading near the high end of its 52-week range. Wall Street analysts had warned that high expectations heading into the print could serve as an inherent risk to the stock price.
Earnings per share (EPS) beat estimates in the quarter, with the company reporting EPS of $5.28, well above consensus expectations of $4.52 and nearly double the $2.88 EPS figure it reported in the year-ago period. Netflix guided to second quarter EPS of $4.68, ahead of consensus calls for $4.54.
Profitability metrics also came in strong, with operating margins sitting at 28.1% for the first quarter compared to 21% in the same period last year.
The company previously guided to full-year 2024 operating margins of 24% after the metric grew to 21% from 18% in 2023. Netflix expects margins to tick down slightly in Q2 to 26.6%.
Free cash flow came in at $2.14 billion in the quarter, above consensus calls of $1.9 billion.
Meanwhile, ARM ticked up 1% year over year — matching the fourth quarter results. Wall Street analysts expect ARM to pick up later this year as both the ad-tier impact and price hike effects take hold.
On the ads front, ad-tier memberships increased 65% quarter over quarter after rising nearly 70% sequentially in Q3 2023 and Q4 2023. The ads plan now accounts for over 40% of all Netflix sign-ups in the markets it’s offered in.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo (REUTERS / Reuters)
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
Oil prices initially spiked on Friday due to unconfirmed reports of an Israeli missile strike on Iran.
Prices briefly reached above $90 per barrel before falling back as Iran denied the attack.
Iranian media reported activating their air defense systems, not an Israeli strike.
Oil prices gave up nearly all of early Friday’s gains after an Iranian official told Reuters that there hadn’t been a missile attack against Iran.
Oil surged by as much as $3 per barrel in Asian trade early on Friday after a U.S. official told ABC News today that Israel launched missile strikes against Iran in the early morning hours today. After briefly spiking to above $90 per barrel early on Friday in Asian trade, Brent fell back to $87.10 per barrel in the morning in Europe.
The news was later confirmed by Iranian media, which said the country’s air defense system took down three drones over the city of Isfahan, according to Al Jazeera. Flights to three cities including Tehran and Isfahan were suspended, Iranian media also reported.
Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s missile strikes last week was seen by most as a guarantee of escalation of the Middle East conflict since Iran had warned Tel Aviv that if it retaliates, so will Tehran in its turn and that retaliation would be on a greater scale than the missile strikes from last week. These developments were naturally seen as strongly bullish for oil prices.
However, hours after unconfirmed reports of an Israeli attack first emerged, Reuters quoted an Iranian official as saying that there was no missile strike carried out against Iran. The explosions that were heard in the large Iranian city of Isfahan were the result of the activation of the air defense systems of Iran, the official told Reuters.
Overall, Iran appears to downplay the event, with most official comments and news reports not mentioning Israel, Reuters notes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites,” confirming Iranian reports on the matter.
The Isfahan province is home to Iran’s nuclear site for uranium enrichment.
“Brent briefly soared back above $90 before reversing lower after Iranian media downplayed a retaliatory strike by Israel,” Saxo Bank said in a Friday note.
The $5 a barrel trading range in oil prices over the past week has been driven by traders attempting to “quantify the level of risk premium needed to reflect heightened tensions but with no impact on supply,” the bank said, adding “Expect prices to bid ahead of the weekend.”
At the time of writing Brent was trading at $87.34 and WTI at $83.14.
