Moderna (mRNA) reported its first miss in several quarters due to slower demand and production problems for its COVID-19 vaccine, its only commercial product, as concerns over winter variants emerged. presently.
The company downgraded guidance for COVID-19 sales to $18 billion for the year, compared with guidance of $21 billion in the second quarter. Revenue in the third quarter was $3.1 billion, down 35% year-on-year.
Moderna said in a statement that the expected drop in revenue is due to production tensions, pushing certain deliveries into 2023 “due to short-term supply constraints.”
According to CEO Stéphane Bancel, the supply constraints stem from different requirements for the updated divalent boosters in Europe and the US.
At the end of June, when the US chose a different strategy from Europe, pursuing the divalent enhancer BA.4/BA.5 instead of the Omicron/BA.1 enhancer, at the end of June, they put the Moderna’s capabilities – and the mRNA platform – to the test.
The company has already produced divalent Omicrons and can immediately launch them, says Bancel in an August interviewbut the move to a completely new product tested the 100-day timeline that mRNA was supposed to deliver.
Moderna blamed the drop in revenue on the FDA. In a filing with the SEC, the company said it was “primarily driven by lower sales volumes due to the market authorization time for our COVID-19 divalent booster and an increase in related production.”
The filing contradicts Bancel’s previous comments to Yahoo Finance.
“I think that’s one of the beauties of the Moderna ability that we have in manufacturing, that we can do what the customer wants. And we want to be here to help medical officials. public health,” Bancel said in August.
Moderna’s chief commercial officer, Arpa Garay, said demand for the two-way booster, while still low, is tracking similarly to last year.
Increased competition
The company faces competition for its mRNA platform, as well as in the vaccine space in general.
While ahead of many trends in mRNA interest, it continues to have to compete with Pfizer/BioNTech (PFE/BNTX) partnership. The company is preparing to file a regulatory filing for the maternal RSV vaccine later this year. Moderna, meanwhile, expects its Phase 3 RSV data in late winter.
RSV is another respiratory virus weighing pediatric units and children’s hospitals as the country faces COVID-19 for another year, plus the return of influenza as well as RSV. Tridemic disease, also known as triple disease, has also created a need for combination vaccines.
Moderna said it expects data from the flu-Covid combination vaccine as early as 2023.
Follow Anjalee on Twitter @AnjKhem
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