New York and Bengaluru | Portal
Moderna announced on Wednesday (13) that it is reducing production of its vaccine against Covid19, an updated version of which was approved by US regulators this week. The company aims to adapt to lower demand postpandemic and the decision will also allow it to achieve its target of 75% to 80% gross margin growth sooner.
Moderna is in talks with its messenger RNAbased Covid vaccine partners around the world to reduce production, Stephen Hoge, president of the Massachusettsbased company, said in an interview.
The reduction, Hoge added, will help Moderna adapt to the endemic phase of the disease, which has led to a decline in demand for Covid19 vaccines.
Moderna forecast in August that U.S. demand for the vaccine would reach 50 million to 100 million doses by the fall season. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 153.8 million Covid vaccines were administered in the United States in 2022.
“We have been in pandemic mode for two years, producing a billion doses a year,” Hoge said. “We were waiting for the moment when the pandemic was officially over and we had to restructure the production area.”
Following approval from the FDA (the agency that regulates and controls food and medicines in the United States) last Monday (11), Moderna announced that it would begin shipping doses of the Covid vaccine throughout the United States.
The company has reached agreements to supply its Covid vaccine to other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, but does not yet have an agreement with the European Union, according to Hoge, who also said Covid was at the heart of the agreement. Moderna manufacturing with China.
Hoge said that while Moderna is urgently working to reduce Covid production, negotiations with thirdparty manufacturers who will help produce the upcoming respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza vaccines that investors hope will begin , to replace Moderna’s declining Covid revenues could extend into next year, Hoge said.
“These are relationships we will need for decades to come,” Hoge said.
Moderna declined to name its partners but previously said they include Thermo Fisher, Sanofi and Catalent.