By Josh Nathan-Kazis
Moderna laid out sales expectations for the coming year on Monday that were below even the much-diminished Wall Street expectations.
The stock was falling 14% to $35.71 in premarket trading.
The biotech that became a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has struggled to regain its footing as the market for Covid-19 vaccines has collapsed. The stock was down 60.4% over the past 12 months as of the close of trading on Friday.
Monday's report will do little to quell investor worries about Moderna. Though the company has promising drugs in development, including a cancer treatment under development with Merck, but vaccine sales are eroding too quickly to comfortably tide the company over until the pipeline matures.
The company said Monday that it expects 2025 revenue of between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion. That's below the current FactSet consensus estimate of $2.9 billion. Just a year ago, analysts were expecting 2025 sales of $5 billion for Moderna.
Moderna also said Monday its 2024 product sales were between $3 billion and $3.1 billion, on the low end of the guidance it had offered just two months ago, when it said sales for the year would be between $3 billion and $3.5 billion. The FactSet consensus estimate for 2024 sales was $3.3 billion.
The company's respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, which it launched this year, landed with a thud. Sales for that shot, called mRESVIA, were "negligible," the company said.
Moderna said it would speed up a previously-announced cost-cutting program, and expected expenses to drop by $1 billion this year, and $0.5 billion in 2025. It said it had cash, cash equivalents, and investments of $9.5 billion at the end of 2024, and would have $6 billion at the end of 2025.
In September, Moderna announced an R&D pullback, and said it would be able to break even on an operating cash cost basis in 2028. It could be a tight squeeze for the company's once-formidable war chest to last that long.
Moderna released the latest update ahead of a presentation scheduled for Monday at the annual J.P. Morgan healthcare investor conference in San Francisco, a major event for the sector.
Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com
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January 13, 2025 07:10 ET (12:10 GMT)
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