The pandemic made vaccines noisy. This acquisition is a bet that the best vaccine businesses are, in fact, boring: repeatable demand, defensible distribution, and a long runway for “catch-up” shots.
When vaccine markets make headlines these days, it is often for the wrong reasons: shortages, politics, or the whiplash of post-pandemic demand. But Sanofi’s agreement to buy Dynavax for about $2.2bn suggests a different story is taking shape — one that looks less like crisis medicine and more like consumer staples.
Sanofi will pay $15.50 per share in cash for Dynavax, a 39 per cent premium to the prior close,
