by Ganesh Sahathevan
Prof Sarah Gilbert owns 5.2% of Vaccitech, according to filings at Companies House. If the firm achieved a flotation value of £425m, her stake would be worth £22m. Photograph: John Cairns/University of Oxford/PA
Prof Sarah Gilbert, the scientist who led the team that created the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, is set for a payday of more than £20m as the biotech firm she co-founded prepares to float on the stock market in the US.
Gilbert, who became a household name as a result of her work creating Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine, owns 5.2% of Vaccitech, a Oxford University spin-out company that owns the biotechnology behind the AstraZeneca vaccine and others for Mers, hepatitis B, the virus that causes shingles, and a range of cancers.
The IPO document filed at the SEC does not disclose any sale of shares by existing shareholders, only fund raising.
Vaccitech shares were offered at USD 17 per share (or technically, per American Depository Receipt). The IPO and subsequent NASDAQ float has not gone well. The company continues to trade below its IPO price.
Meanwhile Gilbert has given an interview on Australian TV in which she has warned the unvaccinated of the dire consequences of not using her product:
So it's really important that people look at the whole picture. With the Delta variant, which is spreading so rapidly, it's going to reach everybody who is not vaccinated and also reach those people who are vaccinated and even if they then get infected, they tend to have a much milder disease. They are protected against hospitalisation.
So really we can't hide from this virus any more. Initial plans were to try to eliminate the virus. That's not going to be possible with the versions that we have spreading now. We have to be prepared to meet it and to deal with it, and that means vaccination.
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