Shares in Danish pharmaceutical lab Bavarian Nordic, the sole manufacturer of an mpox vaccine approved in Europe and the USA, surged on Friday.
The price of Bavarian Nordic shares on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange rose by 18%. On Thursday, the company’s shares had already increased by nearly 10%, following a 12% jump the previous day.
Bavarian Nordic announced on Friday that it has asked the European Medicines Agency to extend the use of its serum to adolescents aged 12 to 17 years.
In the last US outbreak of mpox in 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency-use authorisation for the vaccine in adolescents.
A case of clade 1, a variant of the mpox virus, was discovered in Sweden on Thursday. This was the first instance outside of Africa.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that more imported cases of mpox could soon appear in Europe.
