Moderna stock sees better-than-expected sales rise in 2023
biotechnology company modern (NASDAQ:MRNA) has seen its stock soar in recent weeks, and was boosted by another catalyst on Monday when the company announced relatively good news at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Moderna stock rose more than 4% on Monday to about $115 a share, topping the S&P 500 both last week and last month. Last week, Moderna rose 12.5% to lead all stocks in the large-cap benchmark, and had returned 40.3% over the past month as of Jan. 8. This is also the best among all S&P 500 stocks.
bad news, good news
Monday’s major catalyst was a presentation by Moderna officials at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in which they revealed surprisingly good sales numbers for 2023.
Moderna, famous for its coronavirus vaccine, has shown a steady decline in sales since peaking in 2022 as the number of vaccinations has decreased. Moderna’s sales in the third quarter fell approximately 45% compared to the same period last year. With most of its revenue coming from the Spikevax coronavirus vaccine, investors were concerned not only about the company’s plummeting earnings but also about its future growth prospects.
However, the conference presentation received positive reviews from investors, as Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine sales came in at $6.7 billion in 2023, better than the company’s $6 billion revenue guidance for the third quarter. It was better than analysts expected. But Moderna’s overall sales are still down significantly from 2022, when it sold about $18 billion of its vaccine.
The company also stated that its COVID vaccine market share increased from 37% in 2022 to 48% in 2023.
Moderna expects sales of its COVID vaccine to be much lower, at about $4 billion in 2024, but it has strong new products in the pipeline that could boost sales in the coming years.
“We are preparing to launch Moderna’s second product, the RSV vaccine. 2024 will be an exciting year for the company with multiple milestones across its nine late-stage programs,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said at the conference. “Through this product launch, we are focusing on returning to sales growth in 2025.”
Cancer vaccine shows promise
In total, the biotech company has 45 therapeutic and vaccine programs in development, including nine that are considered late-stage.
The furthest along is its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, which Moderna expects to obtain all necessary regulatory approvals in the first half of this year. The RSV vaccine is expected to hit the market in 2024.
Additionally, Moderna has a flu vaccine in late-stage development that “has consistently demonstrated acceptable safety and tolerability in three Phase 3 trials.” It could come out sometime between 2024 and 2025.
Over the past month, Moderna stock has risen significantly after the company announced that its collaboration with Merck and Co. (NYSE:MRK) had shown promising signs in clinical trials for a melanoma treatment. Specifically, clinical trial results showed that the risk of recurrence or death in high-risk melanoma patients was reduced by 49% after 3 years. Additionally, the risk of distant metastasis or death was reduced by 62%.
At the J.P. Morgan conference, Bancel also said Moderna and Merck plan to expand clinical studies into additional tumor types in 2024.
According to CNBC, Oppenheimer analyst Hartaj Singh upgraded Moderna stock to excess return on January 2, predicting that the company will have five products, including an RSV vaccine, a flu vaccine, and Merck’s melanoma treatment, by 2026. He said it would be possible.
So while Moderna’s long-term outlook looks promising, don’t expect much from the stock in 2024 as sales will continue to decline due to COVID-19. However, investors are encouraged to stay tuned to the company’s earnings report on February 22 for further updates on these developments. It’s definitely a stock worth watching.
