Moderna (MRNA) COVID vaccine unlocked quite a market opportunity back in 2021. MRNA vaccines are quicker to develop therefore quicker to get to a trial cheaply. It was and is super effective against COVID. Looking back at the stock price, it went up to stratospheric heights, 400 a share? Today it is around $30. I ask myself is it a good buy? Personally I think so.
I get it, MRNA's revenues still haven't stabilized, it's on a decline. Consider that we are currently on a trend of vaccine fatigue. It's a historically cyclical event. Since 2022 was MRNA's revenue peak, I would argue the fatigue started around the end of 2022, start of 2023. Assume that the fatigue lasts 2-3 years before people start getting sick, that means assuming we start from 2023 worst case then end of 2025-2026, vaccinations will increase again which will increase revenues.
Now consider this on January 13,
Moderna Provides Business and Pipeline Updates at 43rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. MRNA is developing other vaccines that are currently Phase 3. CMV vaccine is one such that would unlock one hell of a market opportunity for females around the world. The Flu/COVID vaccine combination offers another opportunity, I would expect that to cannibalize the the market for individual COVID, Flu shots. Are people more likely to take a Flu/COVID vaccine? Probably, it's seasonal more likely to be recommended by healthcare providers.
The RSV vaccine provides some revenue, but not the same level as the COVID vaccine. It's unclear how much of a market opportunity the Norovirus vaccine has. There's other vaccines MRNA is working on, but it's unclear the status of them. I'd like to say the Individualized Neoantigen Therapy (INT) vaccines are quite a market opportunity, but there are so many tumors that I wouldn't expect quite a revenue windfall from a successful release. Assuming we can trust the forecast for the IMT market, it's small market and will take time to build.
Now there is concern around bird flu and it spreading over to humans, but is it scaling up to the point it will be an epidemic? Probably not. Assuming it does start to get more widespread, MRNA could rapidly develop vaccines (MRNA Pandemic Flu Program) against bird flu and that would be quite a windfall which would skyrocket the stock again.
We can talk about how much market they need to capture in order to make revenues work out, but I think the bottom is this year. Vaccine uptake will increase again given the amount of people getting sick with a multi-week flu.
I wouldn't expect anything crazy regarding MRNA right now. It might be worth buying at $19-$25. I personally think I'll buy over time as it goes down. 5 years from now, I think MRNA will be well positioned even past the whole RFK HHS vaccine skepticism garbage. I wouldn't be surprised if MRNA is back at $150/share by 2028-2030. Its revenues will be stable with a broader product lineup.