Moderna Q3 Earnings to Swing From Year-Ago Losses; Revenue to Skyrocket

Moderna, the biotech company focused on drug discovery, is expected to report its third-quarter earnings of $9.13 per share, which represents year-over-year growth of over 1,800% from a loss of -$0.53 per share seen in the same period a year ago.

The Massachusetts-based biotechnology company would post revenue growth of 3,500% to around $6.09 billion.

“Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated strong uptake in multiple countries where it received authorization for temporary use in the past few months. The company expects more than $19 billion in vaccine sales in 2021. Advance purchase agreements with several countries for 2022 worth $20 billion in aggregate is already in place. It is also developing several promising mRNA-based pipeline candidates, targeting a wide range of rare diseases and cancer indications,” noted analysts at ZACKS Research.

“Multiple partnerships with big pharma companies to develop some of its pipeline candidates provide funds to the company. The early to mid-stage nature of its pipeline runs a high degree of risk. Any development setbacks would be a major disappointment for the company. Estimates have improved ahead of Q3 results. Moderna has a mixed record of earnings surprises in the recent quarters,” ZACKS added.

Moderna shares soared over 230% so far this year. The stock rose over 1% to $352.50 in pre-market trading on Wednesday.

Moderna Stock Price Forecast

Thirteen analysts who offered stock ratings for Moderna in the last three months forecast the average price in 12 months of $366.56 with a high forecast of $468.00 and a low forecast of $115.00.

The average price target represents a 5.14% change from the last price of $348.64. From those 13 analysts, five rated “Buy”, five rated “Hold”, while three rated “Sell”, according to Tipranks.

Morgan Stanley gave the base target price of $337 with a high of $667 under a bull scenario and $23 under the worst-case scenario. The firm gave an “Equal-weight” rating on the biotechnology company’s stock.

Several other analysts have also updated their stock outlook. Brookline Capital Markets raised the target price to $475 from $468. Deutsche Bank initiated with sell rating and $250 target price. CFRA lifted to buy from hold; lifted the target price to $385.

Analyst Comments

“We are Equal-weight Moderna. While we believe there is long-term upside for Moderna, we believe the significant valuation increase associated with the success of the COVID-19 vaccine limits the near-term upside,” noted Matthew Harrison, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley.

“The company has taken an industrialized approach to developing mRNA-based therapeutics and has rapidly generated a broad pipeline of 21 programs, 11 of which have entered clinical development. We believe Moderna’s mRNA drug development platform is more diversified and scalable compared with competitors and is validated through broad partnerships with Merck and AstraZeneca. We see vaccines and rare diseases as the key valuation drivers of the company.”

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