Moderna Stock Fell as Concerns About the Pandemic and the Future of the COVID Vaccine Were Highlighted

Moderna Stock

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA)

The quarterly report for Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) will be released on Thursday, February 23, before the market opens.

Sales are expected to be $5.02B (-30.4% Y/Y), while earnings per share are predicted to be $4.60 (-59.3% Y/Y).

In the last two years, MRNA has outperformed expectations for earnings per share (EPS) and sales from Wall Street 75% of the time.

There have been 3 upward and 4 negative changes to EPS projections during the last three months. There have been 5 upward and 3 negative adjustments to revenue forecasts.

On November 3, 2022, the corporation’s stock price dropped since Q3 earnings were below expectations. While sales of its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dropped, overall sales were down, causing a reduction in revenue from $5B in Q3 2021 to $3.4B in Q1 2022.

In January, Moderna estimated that its COVID-19 vaccine would generate sales of $18.4 billion in 2022 and confirmed that it would generate at least $5 billion in 2023.

GlobalData, an analytics company, predicts a $10 billion drop in sales of COVID vaccines from 2021 to 2028.

The United States will end the public health emergency in May, but the FDA is cautiously proceeding. To stay current with new COVID-19 variations, an FDA advisory group recommended that people have frequent COVID-19 booster doses in January.

The World Health Organization (WHO) agreed that COVID-19 is still a global public health emergency but acknowledged that the pandemic has reached a “transition stage.”

Yet the cost of the vaccination has garnered much attention. In response to the company’s proposed price increase of the COVID-19 injection to as high as $130 per dosage, the White House has already voiced its disapproval.

Meanwhile, in 2024, Moderna will take on competitors Pfizer and BioNTech in a patent infringement dispute over their successful COVID-19 vaccines at London’s high court.

Yet, a UBS study from February indicates that Moderna’s stock is among earnings-at-risk companies in the current earnings season.

The company’s stock price dropped in early February when the phase 3 trial results for its mRNA-1010 flu vaccine were mixed.

For the three months ending December 31, 2022, Lone Pine acquired 1.4 million shares of Moderna, as reported in a Form 13F filing. Coatue Management has raised its stock holdings in Moderna from 5.71 million to 6.39 million euros.

In the fourth quarter, developing an mRNA cancer vaccine was one of the company’s most notable achievements. In a phase 2b study, individuals with a certain form of skin cancer who received the mRNA cancer vaccine developed by Moderna and Merck and then combined with Keytruda had a 44% reduction in the chance of recurrence or death.

The FDA designated mRNA-1345, Moderna’s vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as a breakthrough treatment in January. The company’s phase 3 results for the RSV vaccine in older individuals fulfilled the major effectiveness targets, which Bank of America praised.

A recent earnings analysis by several of our writers: The Moderna Stock Price: Keeping an Eye on the Future in Q4 Earnings

Featured Image: Pexels @ Chokniti Khongchum

Please See Disclaimer