Novavax, the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based vaccine company, announced on August 28, 2026 that its partners Sanofi and Takeda have secured approvals for an XFG-variant-adapted formulation of Nuvaxovid, Novavax’s protein-based COVID-19 vaccine, across the U.S., European Union, and Japan ahead of the 2026-2027 vaccination season. President and CEO John C. Jacobs framed the approvals as proof of the licensing-heavy strategy Novavax has pursued since largely stepping back from direct commercialization: “We believe our partners Sanofi and Takeda are well-positioned for this commercial season. Sanofi has an expanded U.S. marketing campaign and launches in additional international markets, and under Takeda’s leadership, Nuvaxovid has become the second-leading COVID-19 vaccine in one of the world’s largest healthcare markets. With these approvals, Novavax is eligible for continued royalties on partner sales without carrying commercial infrastructure of our own, a testament to the value creation of our business model.”
A Vaccine Approved for a Narrower Population Than in Years Past
In the U.S. specifically, the FDA’s approval of Sanofi’s XFG-adapted Nuvaxovid came with the same eligibility restrictions that have applied to updated COVID-19 vaccines since 2025: the shot is authorized for adults 65 and older and for people 12 and older with a qualifying underlying health condition, rather than for the general population. The XFG strain update itself follows a recommendation from an FDA vaccine advisory committee, which voted 8 to 1 in May 2026 to target XFG after the variant became the dominant circulating strain in North America. Sanofi has said doses of the updated vaccine will begin arriving in September.
How Novavax Ended Up Relying on Partners to Sell Its Own Vaccine
Novavax’s current model traces back to a co-exclusive licensing agreement it signed with Sanofi in May 2024, under which Sanofi paid Novavax a $500 million upfront payment, gained rights to up to $700 million in additional development, regulatory, and launch milestones, and agreed to pay Novavax tiered double-digit royalty percentages on Sanofi’s COVID-19 vaccine sales. Sanofi also took a minority equity stake in Novavax as part of the deal and holds co-exclusive global commercialization rights to the vaccine, while Novavax retained the ability to develop its own COVID-19-influenza combination candidate separately. Takeda, meanwhile, commercializes Nuvaxovid in Japan under a separate 2025 agreement structured around annual milestone payments tied to regulatory approvals plus royalties on net sales, and the release notes Nuvaxovid became the second-most-used COVID-19 vaccine in Japan during the 2025-2026 season under Takeda’s marketing.
A Business Model Built Around Not Selling Directly
Jacobs’s comment about Novavax being “eligible for continued royalties on partner sales without carrying commercial infrastructure of our own” is a fairly direct description of how much has changed for the company since it ran its own COVID-19 vaccine rollout earlier in the pandemic. Rather than fielding its own sales force or absorbing inventory and marketing costs each vaccination season, Novavax now collects royalty income tied to Sanofi’s and Takeda’s commercial execution, a structure that reduces Novavax’s operating costs and season-to-season commercial risk in exchange for ceding direct control over how, where, and how aggressively the vaccine actually gets marketed to patients.
References
- CDC. (2025). People with Certain Medical Conditions and COVID-19 Risk Factors, Updated June 11, 2025. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/covid/risk-factors/index.html. Accessed August 24, 2026.
- Stertman L. et al.; The Matrix-M™ adjuvant: A critical component of vaccines for the 21st century. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2023 Dec 31;19(1):2189885. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2023.2189885.
SOURCE Novavax, Inc.
