Top Performer for Monday: Novavax (NVAX)

A number of pharma companies are on the rise today in response to swine flu concerns, but Novavax, Inc. (NVAX - Snapshot Report) is among the heaviest gainers with a surge of more than 100%. That easily makes the company a top-performing Zacks #1 Rank for Monday.

NVAX is a clinical-stage biotechnology company creating novel vaccines to address a broad range of infectious diseases worldwide using advanced proprietary virus-like particles (VLP) technology.

Over the weekend, federal officials declared a public health emergency. So far, about 22 people have died from the swine flu in Mexico, while there have been about 40 reported cases in the U.S. NVAX has VLP vaccine candidates against seasonal influenza and potential pandemic influenza strains in phase II clinical development.

However, even before the swine flu scare, NVAX was a Zacks #1 Rank company as earnings estimates for this year moved higher over the past month to a loss of 41 cents from a loss of 43 cents. One of 2 covering analysts boosted expectations in that time. Furthermore, analysts currently expect the loss for next year to be narrower than this year.

In its fourth quarter, which was announced in late March, the company reported a loss per share that was narrower than the consensus.

"We made significant progress in 2008 in advancing our VLP based vaccine pipeline," said CEO Dr. Rahul Singhvi. "We demonstrated in Phase II clinical studies that our VLP based flu vaccines are not only well tolerated and immunogenic in humans, but they have the potential to differentiate themselves from currently available alternatives."

NVAX is a member of the Med-Biomed/Gene industry, which is one of the most well-represented spaces on the Zacks #1 Rank List, which includes 217 stocks today. Other than NVAX, there are 18 other stocks from the space on the list. Some other top performers include Oscient Pharma (OSCI), Dynavax Tech (DVAX - Snapshot Report) and Arca Biopharma (ABIO - Analyst Report).

Make sure to read Jason Napodano's featured story "Swine Flu Impact on Anti-Viral Sales at Zacks.com. (Jason is Zacks Equity Research's Pharmaceuticals analyst.)