Novavax began an identity shift in 2023, moving away from the fully integrated business ambitions once fueled by the pandemic-era vaccine gold rush and toward a leaner structure built on an “amplification strategy.” After eliminating expensive commercial infrastructure and pivoting to a partnership model, the company is now positioning its Matrix-M vaccine adjuvant as a versatile, license-ready asset for other biopharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi and Pfizer.
“The best way to increase access to our technology platform is to put it in the hands of our partners, right?” Sylvia Taylor, Novavax’s chief executive officer and head of its Swedish operations, said in a recent interview with Fierce on the sidelines of the 2026 World Vaccine Congress in Washington. “This is like an amplification strategy.”
Novavax once had grander plans. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a unique opportunity for biotech companies to become fully integrated commercial players like BioNTech and Moderna.
And Novavax ended up achieving that goal, in a sense.
From commercial aspirant to R&D partner
Following emergency use authorization for an adjuvanted protein-based COVID-19 vaccine in mid-2022, the FDA fully approved the vaccine, called Nuvaxovid, in May 2025.
But coming in third place in a shrinking market has proven to be a difficult challenge for the newcomer. The required commercial infrastructure was too expensive to be supported by the tenuous economic returns of competitive fields, especially those dominated by large corporations.
“Normally it takes about six months to prove yourself,” Taylor said. “It took a few years because we were behind.”
“When you’re also at the commercial stage and you’re small, you put all your efforts in that basket. (…) You don’t have the luxury of putting them in the R&D basket.”
In 2023, newly appointed CEO John Jacobs began a restructuring of Novavax, initially focused on cutting research and development costs and other expenses in order to direct resources to the company’s coronavirus response programs. However, in 2024, Novaxovid officially moved to a partnership model by signing Sanofi as a collaborator on Nuvaxovid and future combo shots.
“Sanofi is a global vaccine giant. They have a very established influenza franchise,” Taylor recalled. “We’re trying to understand the retailers. We’re trying to get them to deploy our vaccine. We’re trying to get them to trust us (…) They already have it.”
This recognition prompted Novavax to move to a partnership model that “allows us to do what we do best: focus on the science and expertise we have in nanoparticle technology platforms and adjuvants (and) continue to generate new science.”
The strategy came to fruition in early 2026, when Pfizer paid $30 million up front and committed up to $500 million in milestones to use Novavax’s Matrix-M in two programs.
license of the future
Taylor said four additional drug companies have signed material transfer agreements to allow them to experiment with Matrix-M before entering into formal licensing agreements.
Matrix-M is a saponin-based adjuvant that enhances vaccine immune responses. This does not include aluminum, a popular vaccine adjuvant that U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has targeted in his elaborate campaign against vaccines.
Besides Nuvaxovid, Matrix-M technology is also used in an affordable malaria vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the Serum Institute of India. Taylor noted that between those two shots, Matrix-M was used by tens of millions of people.
The new operating model has significantly restructured Novavax’s balance sheet. Cost of goods sold was $203 million in 2024, which decreased to $73 million in 2025. Non-GAAP research and development expense, which takes into account reimbursement payments from Sanofi, decreased 33% compared to the prior year period. Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased 53% to $157 million.
Further reductions are expected as Novavax targets non-GAAP R&D and SG&A expenses of $325 million this year, $225 million in 2027 and $200 million in 2028.
While the commercial team left, Novavax retained a strategy team alongside the business development function to understand market conditions. And we still need a research and development team to explore new possibilities.
Sylvia Taylor, CEO of Novavax
and the Chief of Sweden (Novavax)
“The partnership with Pfizer came about because we started tinkering with some of the antigens. (We) just made them and then applied Matrix-M,” Taylor said. “So we knocked on their door and said: ‘Would you like to see some really interesting data that we’ve generated that shows that this could be faster, cheaper, better (…) with any vaccine candidate?'”
The R&D team has the potential to experiment with adjuvants, understand whether they work on mRNA or new formulation approaches, such as dry powders, and make improvements to create next-generation technologies, Taylor said.
And this technology has shown potential to go beyond vaccines to prevent infectious diseases. “Several potential partners in the oncology field” have expressed interest in applying Matrix-M to their research, Taylor said.
Oncology could be a big opportunity, but Novavax executives said development in that area is in the very early stages and the company is still learning and identifying areas where Matrix-M could be useful.
play the long game
A small arm of Novavax’s research and development team is still developing the new vaccine, but no future commercialization by the Maryland company is planned. These include a preclinical C. difficile candidate, which Novavax hopes will be brought into the clinic in 2027 and eventually partnered with.
As part of its pandemic-era ambitions, Novavax has also developed a new influenza combination vaccine that builds on an influenza program that previously generated Phase 3 data. Novavax then paused development of the combination vaccine and envisions potential partners conducting their own Phase 3.
Major pharmaceutical companies are eyeing the possibility of combination therapy for the new coronavirus and influenza. Pfizer and its partners BioNTech, Moderna, GSK through an agreement with CureVac, and Sanofi are all working on such candidates.
Rather than trying the Novavax combination, Sanofi is combining the biotech’s Nuvaxovid with its own flu shot and moving it into Phase 3 trials. At the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in January, the French drugmaker highlighted the combination vaccine as one of three growth engines to replace Dupixent when the immunology blockbuster loses patent protection in the early 2030s.
Sanofi continues to invest in vaccines despite the challenging U.S. policy environment, recently acquiring Dynavax Technologies for $2.2 billion.
As a publicly traded company, Novavax is open to M&A offers, but Taylor suggested now may not be the right time to do so.
“If a company is going to make a deal, they want to maximize the value of it,” she says. “We’re far from the maximum.”
The Sanofi-Pfizer partnership provides for upfront and milestone payments, but the “real money” will be paid in the form of royalties once the product is on the market, Taylor said.
Vaccines take time to develop, so despite recent regulatory headwinds, companies with vaccine portfolios are demonstrating a long-term commitment. And Matrix-M stands to benefit from this “fertile hunting ground,” which is why Novavax is sticking to its partnership strategy for now, she added.
“We have three years left in this administration, and the need for vaccines will continue,” Taylor said.
“Unfortunately, there has been significant damage to the vaccine policy environment and infrastructure that will take time to recover,” Taylor said. “But we’re counting on the need for a vaccine. In fact, the need for a vaccine exists.”
