The bulk of Moderna’s (MNRA) revenue comes from governments abroad preparing for an ongoing need for COVID-19 vaccines this year.
As the U.S. waits for funding and for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to decide which strain of the virus to target with boosters, Moderna and other vaccine companies anticipate that waning immunity will become an issue.
“This virus isn’t getting any less contagious,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told Yahoo Finance. “As you see more and more infectious variants… We’re not done mutating this virus,” he said.
The biggest risk in the fall, if the ramp-up is delayed, is that hospitals may fill up again with those most at risk, Bancel said.
Increased circulation from the intersection of waning immunity and a more transmissible variant, as seen in more Omicron subvariants in the US and abroad, is the real risk, he said.
“We have a risk in the fall – if we don’t have the booster campaign early enough – that we might not be in a good place in the fall,” Bancel said.
Meanwhile, the increased worldwide distribution also contributes to the sprouting of more variants.
Of the $5.9 billion in revenue from the vaccine in the first quarter of this year — a significant increase from $1.7 billion in the first quarter of 2021 — much came from countries other than the United States, according to Moderna.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has urged the company to share its vaccine recipe, even if it fails to order more doses through the COVAX facility program for low- and middle-income countries.
Moderna said during its annual shareholder meeting that it has been selling its vaccine to those countries for just $7 a dose and has waived patent enforcement of the vaccine, in addition to its plans for a plant in Kenya in the coming years.
In an earnings call on Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer David Meline said COVAX is another source of uncertainty for the company’s 2022 guidance.
The story goes on
COVAX is “actually the consolidator of demand from countries” and must confirm requests per country before confirming its order to Moderna, Meline said.
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