Moderna’s stock (MRNA) has tanked today upon announcement that the partnership of Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline has finally produced good results in late stage testing for their Covid vaccine and they will be submitting it for approval in the US and Europe. These pharmaceutical heavyweights had run into multiple delays, but overcame them and the vaccine is showing very good efficacy, up there with the mRNA based Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Moderna reports earnings tomorrow before market open, and their expected profit has been climbing steadily up to $9.90 now from $8.62 60 days ago. There is still an immense global market for Covid vaccines from developing countries who still have not vaccinated their population to ongoing booster shots in developed countries.
Trailing twelve months diluted earnings are $16.28 giving a trailing PE of 8.4 based on recent price of $136.50/share. If they hit expectations of $9.9 tomorrow that would increase trailing earnings all the way up to $26.87 and drop trailing PE to 5.08. Current expectations for next year’s earnings are $28.32 per Yahoo. If that holds up the company will have earned 40% of its current per share stock price this year and next.
I’ve looked a little more into their pipeline. They have two new vaccines in stage 3 trials: for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), a common respiratory virus that can be serious for the very young and old, and for cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common virus that is in the same family as herpes and which remains latent in carriers long term. It can cause serious problems for infants and the immune compromised.
Other vaccines and drugs in development/testing are a refrigerator stable Covid vaccine, multiple variant specific Covid vaccines, a quadrivalent flu vaccine, a Covid/flu vaccine, a pediatric combo vaccine for RSV and Human metapneumovirus (hMPV), Epstein–Barr virus vaccine, and therapeutics targeting advanced melanoma, acidemia, and cystic fibrosis. https://www.modernatx.com/pipeline
I bought some more today for my and my family’s accounts at ~137-138. Seems like a really good bet to me. In news that is dismaying at a human level, but good for MRNA’s prospects, an omicron subvariant BA.2, is widespread worldwide, including the US, and has displaced Omicron in South Africa and Denmark. It appears to be ~30% more contagious than Omicron and better at evading the immune system. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/21/1081810…