Dive Brief:

• Moderna on Thursday reported third quarter sales of its COVID-19 vaccine that substantially outperformed analyst expectations. The company didn't raise its financial outlook for the year, however, suggesting revenue could decline over the last three months of 2024.
• From July through September, sales of the COVID shot Spikevax totaled $1.8 billion, about $600 million higher than what Wall Street had forecast. Moderna expects full year revenue to reach between $3 billion and $3.5 billion.
• Moderna also reported the first revenue for mResvia, its new vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, but the $10 million it booked was well below projections of about $60 million. The company said the lower-than-anticipated sales were due to the timing of mResvia’s approval and recommendation for use.

Dive Insight:

Moderna has been grappling with the consequences of a shrinking market for its COVID vaccine, sales of which had greatly buoyed the company’s finances and allowed it to substantially increase spending in past years.

Now, with sales having ebbed, the biotechnology company is cutting back. In September, it shared plans to end five drug development programs and shrink R&D expenses by 20%. Executives also said they would “pace” investment in research for new vaccines and rare disease drugs.

Thursday’s revenue beat provided some reprieve, although the uptick appears to have been driven by earlier sales linked to the faster approval of this year’s updated formulation versus last year’s. According to Moderna, the company shipped twice as many doses into the market in the first week post approval than in 2023.

“We are reluctant to call this a beat, given full year 2024 revenue guidance was not raised, and point to sales being pulled forward into August [and] September,” wrote Myles Minter, an analyst at William Blair, in a Thursday note to clients.

Mani Foroohar, an analyst at Leerink Partners, put it more succinctly in titling his investor note, “When is a beat not a beat?”

So far this year, Moderna’s product sales have now totaled $2.2 billion, implying a fourth quarter in which sales will come in between $800 million and $1.5 billion.

Moderna shares rose by as much as 9% Thursday morning, before slipping to trade up around 1%.

Approved at the end of May, mResvia is supposed to be Moderna’s next big product. But the biotech faces tough competition from GSK and Pfizer, both of which sell their own RSV shots. Contracts signed early in the year between those companies, wholesalers and retail pharmacies have already built up a lot of RSV vaccine inventory, according to Moderna. That, in turn, has hampered sales of mResvia.

“It’s taking quite some time to go through that inventory,” said Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel on a conference call Thursday.

Both GSK and Pfizer have reported lower sales of their vaccines than during this time last year, a pattern they’ve attributed to narrower recommendations on their use from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bancel said that has also impacted mResvia, as have efforts to prioritize COVID vaccinations.

Like GSK and Pfizer, Moderna intends to expand the market for its vaccine beyond the population of older adults for whom it’s currently cleared. On Thursday, the company said it would use a priority review voucher to expedite the Food and Drug Administration’s review of mResvia in high-risk adults between 18 years and 59 years old.

Moderna also said president Stephen Hoge would take on leadership of the company’s commercial organization, confirming reporting from Bloomberg that Bancel would hand off those duties.