Moderna Shares Explode as Company Collects Revenue on Covid Drug

Shares of Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna were headed higher in Thursday’s trading session after the company reported third quarter revenue that skyrocketed.

For the quarter, Moderna, who is one of the Covid-19 vaccine candidates closest to possible approval, reported a loss per share of 59 cents. Revenue however was $157.91 million, a staggering 826% growth.

On average, analysts polled by FactSet had projected a loss of 38 cents per share on just $80.6 million in sales.

In the third quarter of 2019 the company had a loss of 37 cents and only $17.1 million in revenue.

The company has received $1.1 billion of deposits from governments around the world for supplies of a Covid vaccine, which it marked down as deferred revenue.

CEO Stephane Bancel said on the earnings call, “As many of you know, we completed enrollment of our Phase 3 COVE study for MRNA-1273. 30,000 participants have been enrolled in the study, 37% of whom are from diverse communities.”

“We are grateful for participants in the study and for principal investigators. I would like to also thank PPD and NIH for a great job and collaboration. It is very important to the Moderna team that we have a high bar for quality and transparency to ensure the public has trust in COVID-19 vaccine. We have reported weekly enrollment progress of the COVE study and have reported weekly enrollment numbers from diverse communities,” he added.

“While we are not happy with the representation of these diverse communities, given the high burden of disease in these populations, we decided to slow down the overall COVE study enrollment process in order to recruit more people from diverse communities. As you can imagine, it was not an easy decision to slow down, but it was the right decision. We signed the biopharma pledge to not submit for regulatory approval for MRNA-1273 until we have adequate safety and efficacy data. We were also the first company to file the full and redacted version of our Phase 3 protocol online to ensure clinicians around the world could see in full transparency how the COVE study is being run,” he went on.

“We were pleased to set the standard and have others in the industry follow early. We continue to expect our first interim analysis to read out in November. The independent Data Safety Monitoring Board, or DSMB, will carry out this interim analysis and then inform Moderna. We should have a post second dose two-month safety follow-up after the second vaccination of a 15,000 median participants in the second half of November.”

Just over half, 53%, of the participants in the trial are male and 47% are female, according to a presentation from the company.

Moderna has supply agreements in North America, the Middle East and in other regions of the world. The company is ongoing talks with the World Health Organization-backed COVAX initiative on a tiered pricing proposal for its potential vaccine dubbed mRNA-1273.

“We are actively preparing for the launch of mRNA-1273 and we have signed a number of supply agreements with governments around the world,” Mr. Bancel said in a press release. “Moderna is committed to the highest data quality standards and rigorous scientific research as we continue to work with regulators to advance mRNA-1273.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.