Modern (NASDAQ: MRNA) saw its stock rise on Thursday, despite increasing losses, after vaccine maker COVID-19 reported more than double the revenue forecast by Wall Street. Moderna failed to meet EPS expectations with revenue far exceeding analysts’ forecasts when the company began to recognize revenue from sales of its COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020. The loss was simply the result of a major investment to increase the production of its COVID-19 vaccine.
The company has spent the past two months producing and shipping its long-awaited coronavirus vaccine, but the fourth quarter is just the surface of the vaccine’s success. In 2021, Moderna plans to manufacture 600-700 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, but it should be able to expand its capacity to 1.4 billion doses in 2022 due to large capital investments, which are expected to result in huge profits .
Q4 and FY 2020
For the fourth quarter ended December 31, Moderna reported a quarterly loss of $ 0.69 per share, which was below Zacks’ consensus estimate of $ 0.25. Moderna had sales of US $ 570.75 billion. This crushed the average estimate of analysts surveyed by FactSet by $ 279.4 million and surpassing Zacks’ consensus estimate by 74.76%. Just a year ago, revenue was $ 14.06 million, but until its mRNA-1273 vaccine against coronavirus, the company had never launched an approved drug on the market.
Losses rose to 69 cents per share after a 37 percent loss per share over the past year, while analysts had expected a 34 percent loss. Although a large part of the revenue still comes from the subsidy received from the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority for the advancement of its COVID vaccine, for the first time, Moderna had sales of products, which totaled $ 199.87 million when the company started to recognize COVID vaccine sales in December. Although losses increased in 2020, Moderna’s sales skyrocketed to $ 803.4 million.
Possible threat
One of the biggest risks ahead for all vaccine manufacturers is the prevalence of new variants of the coronavirus. To address this, Moderna is investigating two updates. The first is actually a third dose of vaccine that would increase levels of neutralizing antibodies to better prevent new strains. The second is an updated, strain-specific version that was moved to pre-clinical and phase 1 testing in late January. Moderna is designing it to achieve the. If successful, the company should be able to adapt it quickly to protect against future strains, although it is designed to target South African variation.
Teenagers
In early December, Moderna started a phase 2/3 trial of its COVID vaccine in young adults 12 to 17 years of age. The data will be reported in the spring and should result in an Emergency Use Authorization just in time for the September back-to-school period. But since last month, Moderna didn’t have enough teen volunteers.
Adolescents are not at the greatest risk of serious complications from COVID-19, but they do play a role in the transmission of the virus, so vaccination is another important element in containing the pandemic.
2021
The company expects $ 18.4 billion in sales of its COVID vaccine in 2021. The number is based on pre-purchase agreements already signed, but further discussions are underway for 2021 and 2022. This outlook has shaken the predictions as analysts had expected $ 11 billion. In addition, the company said it plans to produce 700 million doses of its vaccine this year, while still working to raise that capacity to 1 billion. In 2022, Moderna expects to produce 1.4 billion doses.
The chief executive, Stephane Bancel, considered 2020 to be a historic year for the company, Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) for one week in the USA when obtaining emergency use authorization. The vaccine is Moderna’s first commercial product with 32 million doses administered in the United States to millions of people worldwide.
In 2020, Moderna ceased to know that mRNA vaccines can be highly efficient and became a cash-flow trading company that is helping to save the world from the clutches of an invisible enemy. The last reported quarter ended a remarkable year for the biotechnology company. 2020 was a year in which the world darkened, but the pandemic helped Moderna to shine, as it gave us a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. Since the beginning of 2021, its shares have gained 38.6%, far exceeding the 4.5% gain of the S&P 500.
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