Key Takeaways:
Moderna's stock doubled in August after a Phase 3 melanoma trial with Merck succeeded.
Moderna's stock more than doubled in August, surging 177% in a single session after a Phase 3 melanoma trial with Merck succeeded. The shares ended the month up about 150%, and traded at $140.34 on Sept. 1, giving the company a market value of $56 billion.
The companies said the combination of Moderna's personalized mRNA vaccine and Merck's Keytruda significantly extended recurrence-free survival in advanced melanoma patients who had undergone surgery, versus Keytruda alone, the current standard immunotherapy. The treatment is personalized, targeting the specific mutations in each patient's tumor, and marks the first mRNA cancer vaccine to succeed in a late-stage study.
The stock's 52-week range spans $22.28 to $176.66, with volume of 18.6 million shares on Sept. 1 versus a 14.9 million average. The oncology candidate is involved in 10 clinical trials, four in Phase 3 — one for melanoma and three for non-small cell lung cancer. Moderna's coronavirus vaccine brought in more than $18 billion in annual revenue at its peak, before demand collapsed in later pandemic years and forced the company to cut costs and redirect its focus to respiratory vaccines, a rare-disease pipeline, and oncology.
The trial win gives Moderna a path beyond its COVID-19 franchise, which has weighed on earnings since demand faded. The company has since won approval for updated coronavirus vaccines, a respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, and a flu vaccine. Investors have twice rewarded the mRNA platform with sharp rallies — the stock gained 2,000% from 2020 through early August 2021 — but it has not held those gains.
Regulatory approval is not yet scheduled, and a personalized vaccine is costly and logistically complex to produce, so meaningful revenue may take time. The stock's gross margin stands at 12.57%, and after the August surge some of the good news may be priced in. A pullback could offer a better entry point, though the company has proven its platform across treatment areas and could produce substantial growth in the years ahead.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
