By
Godfrey Benjamin
October 4th, 2023
Moderna earned $7.70 per share for its latest quarter versus the $9.05 Refinitiv consensus estimate.
Moderna Inc (NASDAQ: MRNA), a biotechnology company that focuses on messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, saw its shares tumble more than 17% on Thursday after reporting weaker than expected Q3 earnings results. Additionally, the drugmaker cut its Covid-19 vaccine sales forecast for the year.
Notably, Moderna earned $7.70 per share for its latest quarter versus the $9.05 Refinitiv consensus estimate. During the third-quarter ending on September 30, 2021, the company recorded total revenue of $5.0 billion, and a net income of $3.3 billion.
The company has most of its Covid vaccine delivered to developed countries with approximately 10% allocated to low-income countries. “We will not rest until our vaccine is available to anyone who needs it, and we are working hard to ensure our vaccine is available in low-income countries with approximately 10% of our 2021 volume and significantly more of our 2022 volume going to low-income countries,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna.
The company is also working on other therapeutic drugs including HIV vaccine and Cancer treatment drugs using its mRNA technology. “Moderna continues to scale, now with 37 programs in development across 34 development candidates1, including 21 in ongoing clinical studies,” the firm noted in the Q3 earnings report.
Moderna’s booster dose of mRNA-1273 is currently approved by the United States FDA, EMA, Swissmedic among other jurisdictions. Further, the company is developing the next-generation vaccine candidate against COVID-19 dubbed mRNA-1283. The company highlighted that it is, however, in the initial stages of developing the vaccine.
Moderna Stock and Its Performance in Q3
According to market analytics provided by MarketWatch, Moderna stock has had mixed results in the past two years. Precisely, MRNA shares have risen approximately 297%, and 171% in the past year and YTD respectively through Thursday. However, the company’s stock market has dropped approximately 31%, 8%, and 18% in the past three months, one month and five days respectively through Thursday.
The company has a market capitalization of approximately $139.63 billion with 403.65 million outstanding shares. In the past 52 weeks, MRNA shares have ranged between 70.16 and 497.47.
Forward, there are uncertainties presented by the Covid crisis that the company is having to deal with. Among them, Moderna has had to readjust its Covid vaccine delivery. Notably, the company said it expects to deliver between 700 million and 800 million doses this year, down from its previous expectations of between 800 million and 1 billion doses. Additionally, the company said it projects sales of $17 billion to $22 billion in the fiscal year 2022.