ILLUSTRATION of hantavirus testing concept with laboratory tubes containing cotton swabs and HANTAVIRUS labels photographed in front of a public domain hantavirus related microscopic image released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Paris, France, May 8, 2026.
Joao Luiz Bulcao | Afp | Getty Images
Several pharmaceutical stocks surged on Monday as investors assessed which company might be best primed to tackle an outbreak of the hantavirus.
The World Health Organization flagged an outbreak of hantavirus, a fatal and viral respiratory disease spread by rodents, on May 2, after some passengers caught it on a Dutch-flagged expedition cruise ship, the MV Hondius, which was sailing the Atlantic.
The public health risk for the virus is low, according to the WHO and other health authorities have noted that human transmission is rare. Here’s how the outbreak has led to a rally in certain pharma and biotech stocks.
Which pharma and biotech stocks are rising?
Biotech firm Moderna, which developed one of the main Covid-19 vaccines, was last up 7% in premarket trading after it said it was conducting preclinical research on the virus.
“Moderna has conducted preclinical research on Hantaviruses in collaboration with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), reflecting the ongoing regional impact of these pathogens,” it said in a statement shared with CNBC.
“These efforts are early-stage and ongoing and reflect Moderna’s broader responsibility to develop countermeasures against emerging infectious diseases.”
Evercore ISI said last week that it is unlikely to be a revenue opportunity for Moderna in the Hantavirus case.
Moderna stocks year-to-date compared to several other pharma stocks.
“As a heavily retail-trafficked name, [Moderna] tends to trade on outbreak headlines well beyond the underlying commercial implications,” Evercore analysts said in the note published on May 7. “With regards to current headlines, we see no meaningful revenue opportunity.”
“Hantavirus is a low-incidence, structurally small market, and we view any potential outsized moves as sentiment-driven, not fundamental. At most, it reinforces Moderna’s mRNA platform agility, something already well understood post-COVID,” they added.
Meanwhile, vaccine development firm Inovio Pharmaceuticals jumped 13% in early trading, while biotech firms Emergent Biosolutions and Novavax were up 4% and 3%, respectively.
U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the situation on Friday, saying that the cruise ship outbreak is under control and that a report on the virus would follow soon.
“It’s very much, we hope, under control,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “It was the ship, and I think we’re going to make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of people. … It should be fine.”
What is hantavirus and how serious is the outbreak?
The Hantavirus strain in this case is the Andes virus, which is the only species that can cause transmission between humans, according to the WHO.
WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that eight cases have been reported so far, with three deaths, and five of the cases confirmed as hantavirus. The WHO has assessed the “public health risk as low,” Ghebreyesus said.
The MV Hondius has now docked in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, after spending several days offshore awaiting clearance.
Passengers and crew have begun disembarking under strict health protocols, with authorities coordinating testing, isolation, and repatriation efforts across multiple countries as they continue to monitor the spread of the virus.
