Moderna Inc. (MRNA, Financial) revealed on Wednesday that it will not release data from its Covid-19 vaccine trial in children ages two to five until March.
"If the data is supportive and subject to regulatory consultation, Moderna may proceed with regulatory filings for children two to five years of age thereafter," the biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts said.
Moderna's vaccine has obtained authorizations in Europe, the U.K., Australia and Canada for children ages 12 to 17 years, Reuters is reporting. It has also filed applications for younger kids, ages six to 11.
The company, which is pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, is also hard at work developing a booster that will work on the Omicron variant for this coming fall. “We are discussing with public health leaders around the world to decide what we think is the best strategy for the potential booster for the fall of 2022. We believe it will contain omicron,” CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Shares were trading at $212.72 just after midday on Thursday, a decline of 4.70% that some attributed to profit-taking following its leap on Monday. Investors were quick to downplay the dip, however, noting that other vaccine stocks, such as BioNTech SE (BNTX, Financial), were also down. Based on Moderna’s fundamental strength, many analysts expected to see a swift stock price turnaround, perhaps by the end of business today. As one quipped, “Buy the dip and hold. Wash, rinse and repeat.”
Others are encouraged by the long view. “Perhaps the most important thing to watch with Moderna now is how quickly efficacy wanes for natural infections and current vaccines with the spread of the omicron variant,” The Motley Fool's Keith Speights wrote. “Although Moderna's Omicron-targeting vaccine won't be of help in the near term, it could be needed in the not-too-distant future.”
The company announced recent updates on its industry-leading mRNA pipeline on Wednesday. Moderna continues to scale, now with 40 programs in development, including 23 in ongoing clinical studies, encompassing mRNA infectious disease vaccines and mRNA therapeutics spanning seven different modalities.
"We will continue to advance mRNA vaccines that can have a profound impact on health and quality of life including vaccines against respiratory viruses with the goal of bringing to market a pan-respiratory annual customizable booster vaccine," Bancel said. "In parallel, we are advancing first-in-class vaccines against latent viruses, which remain in the body for life and can cause lifelong medical conditions and we are also working to bring to market therapeutics based on mRNA-encoded proteins to help address multiple disease areas. We look forward to further leveraging our mRNA technology and delivery into gene-editing and other ways to impact human health."
That same day, Moderna and Carisma Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical pioneer in engineered macrophage-based therapeutics, announced they had entered into a strategic collaboration agreement to discover, develop and commercialize in vivo engineered chimeric antigen receptor monocyte (CAR-M) therapeutics for the treatment of cancer.
"We are excited to begin this collaboration with Carisma to further expand our oncology pipeline with a differentiated in vivo cell-therapy approach," Moderna President Stephen Hoge said. "This exemplifies our strategy to partner with companies with deep biological expertise while leveraging Moderna's core mRNA and LNP capabilities to further expand the reach of Moderna's technology."
