Investing.com – ADRs of Valneva (NASDAQ:) climbed more than 31% in Monday’s premarket as the company said the phase-3 trials of a prospective vaccine against Covid-19 vaccine had shown positive results.

The trials pitted Valneva’s candidate against the AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:) vaccine that is among the six most widely used in the world against Covid. Valneva claims the results showed its candidate has superior neutralizing antibody levels compared to the British firm’s vaccine.

Valneva stated that this result may indicate that vaccines were able to prevent severe Covid-19 infections caused by circulating variants, including Delta.

Valneva said it is preparing for trials in children 5-12 and a booster trial to evaluate the vaccine, VLA2001’s, booster performance for people in need of it.

The company has commenced submission for initial approval with the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and is preparing to initiate the same with the European Medicines Agency.

It comes just weeks after the U.K. pulled a pro forma order of 100mln doses of drug, alleging that Valneva had broken its contract. Valneva denied making the claims at the time. However, outside observers believed that the U.K. government was motivated by friction with the French government regarding mutual implementations of the Brexit deal and a bilateral agreement to police migrant movements across the English Channel.

However, the stock has recovered more than half of its losses in response to U.K. moves.