Moderna stock popped Wednesday after the company said its experimental flu shot outperformed broadly used vaccines from Sanofi and GSK.
The company pitted its messenger-RNA-based flu shot against Sanofi's Fluzone and GSK's Fluarix. All three vaccines aim to block four strains of influenza. In recent studies, Moderna said its vaccine generated a higher level of antibodies than the already licensed vaccines.
Moderna said the experimental flu shot met the goal of a final-phase study. One analyst, though, called the vaccine "a commercial nonstarter," noting earlier this year the vaccine didn't meet the non-inferiority threshold for two influenza strains in a key study. Since then, Moderna says it has tweaked its formula.
The news comes days after the Food and Drug Administration signed off on the updated Covid vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer with partner BioNTech. Meanwhile, the FDA is mulling approval for Moderna's respiratory syncytial virus vaccine.
Getting all three approvals opens the door to numerous potential vaccine combinations, Moderna Chief Financial Officer Jamey Mock said. Meanwhile, the company is moving its cancer vaccine with Merck into a Phase 3 study of patients with lung cancer.
Moderna expects to ultimately launch 15 new products over the next five years. It expects to bring in an additional $10 billion to $15 billion in annual sales of cancer, rare and latent diseases drugs by 2028, and $8 billion to $15 billion in respiratory drugs in 2027.
Despite the bout of recent news, Moderna stock remains damaged, down 40% this year. But on today's stock market, shares surged 3.2% to close at 108.59.
"I think the organic growth story of Moderna is probably not well understood," Mock told Investor's Business Daily.
Moderna Stock: Burgeoning Pipeline
The update for the flu shot came Wednesday during Moderna's annual Research and Development Day.
"Our mRNA platform is working," Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said in a written statement.
In the fourth quarter, Moderna expects to provide updates on its next-generation Covid vaccine — a pre-filled syringe that can be stored in a refrigerator rather than a freezer — and a combination with its experimental flu shot. Both could be key events for Moderna stock.
Mock says the company still expects $6 billion to $8 billion in sales of its Covid vaccine this year. That's highly dependent on U.S. vaccination rates. In the first half of the year, the company brought in $2 billion in sales. It already has $2 billion in previous signed contracts.
In the U.S., about 70% of people age 65 and older get the annual flu shot. Moderna is assuming roughly half of that population — 35% — will get the Covid booster. That leaves just 10% of the rest of the U.S. population to get the booster shot to meet the guidance call, Mock said.
"We have confidence on the low end," he said. "On the high end, we have seen 100 million in Covid (vaccines) before."
Updates Coming In Cancer Treatment
The company also expects to have an update on its Phase 2 study in melanoma. This study is looking at Moderna's Merck-partnered cancer vaccine combined with Keytruda in patients who have had the cancer surgically removed. The companies have already started a Phase 3 study.
These studies in cancer have long windows. Moderna expects to have the final melanoma results in 2029, according to ClinicalTrials.gov. Mock notes there's a silver lining to the long-term results: It means patients are surviving longer and their cancer isn't returning.
"Then we'll look to other (cancers) as well," he said.
Moderna is working to build out its portfolio in four key areas: respiratory, cancer, rare diseases and latent diseases. The latent-diseases vaccine market "is a large unaddressed market estimated at approximately $10 billion to $25 billion," Moderna said in a news release.
In that vein, Moderna is running a Phase 3 test of a vaccine for cytomegalovirus, or CMV. It's also testing a vaccine to block norovirus, a leading cause of diarrheal disease.
Other latent diseases include Epstein Barr virus, herpes, chickenpox and HIV.
In the rare-diseases market, Moderna expects to launch four new products over the next five years.
It's currently in early-stage testing of people with methylmalonic acidemia and propionic acidemia. The former occurs when a patient is missing a key liver enzyme. This can cause numerous systemic problems. The latter is a serious genetic disease in which the body can't break down specific proteins and fats.
Moderna Stock: Organic Growth Coming
Despite the Moderna stock action, there's a lot to like in the near- and long-term from Moderna, Mock says.
"We are really branching out beyond not just Covid, but larger respiratory, into rare disease and oncology," he said. "The organic growth story is really coming on for Moderna. Someday, we expect to be $20 billion to $30 billion in revenue. There's a lot of excitement for years to come here."
Follow Allison Gatlin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @IBD_AGatlin.
