At its April 14 Vaccines Day, Moderna Inc. (MRNA, Financial) provided evidence that the company has plenty in the tank behind its highly successful Covid-19 shot. The challenge now is to get the products across the finish line.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech has a boatload of cash for research and development, having reaped the benefits of supplying a high percentage of the nearly 193 billion Covid doses that have been given in the U.S. to date. Pfizer Inc. (PFE, Financial), BioNTech SE (BNTX, Financial) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Financial) also have approved shots, but the latter's been put on hold over safety concerns.
Moderna thinks its pipeline will yield a large variety of follow-up vaccines quickly, just as it did with the Covid shot. "We believe we have a unique opportunity to develop new vaccines against viruses hurting people around the world, at a pace that is radically different from what the industry has previously done," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said.
Investors appear to have confidence in Moderna post-Covid. The stock has tripled in the past year to over $156, though it has traded as high as near $190 during that time. The company now has a market cap of more than $62 billion. Analysts place Moderna shares between a buy and hold, with a high target price of $208 and a low of $80, according to Yahoo Finance.
Faith in Moderna's ability to develop additional vaccines has been boosted by the success of its mRNA technology with the Covid shot. There was concern whether the technology would work since researchers have been studying and working with mRNA vaccines for decades. Moderna has proved that a vaccine can be developed in a laboratory using readily available materials. This means the process can be standardized and scaled up, making vaccine development faster than traditional methods of producing them, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Moderna revealed it has forwarded 14 different mRNA vaccine candidates into clinical trials. The company reported new positive interim phase 1 data from its Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine candidate and new seven-month interim phase 2 data from its cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine aspirant.
Developing successful shots for both could prove to be a bonanza. There is currently no approved vaccine for RSV, which is typically a mild respiratory virus that can be severe in infants and older adults. Most cold viruses are mere annoyances, but they can affect some people much harder, leading to leading to pneumonia and hospitalizations. It's thought to cause about 3 million hospitalizations of children under the age of five globally, with around 177,000 hospitalizations of older people in the U.S.
However, Moderna has some catching up to do since its trails GlaxoSmithKline (GSK, Financial) by a wide margin in the RSV race.
Moderna will also advance to phase 3 a vaccine for cytomegalovirus. CMV usually goes undetected or causes mild illness, but can cause serious problems such as hepatitis in people who have weakened immune systems or in babies born with the virus.
Also, several of Moderna's vaccine candidates are expected to be in clinical trials in 2021, including two for HIV and another for seasonal flu.
Disclosure: The author has a position in Johnson & Johnson.
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