A second chance for Moderna: How a cancer vaccine sent shares soaring

Traders Union
All News
Editors' Picks
A second chance for Moderna

The day everything changed

Many people first heard of Moderna during the coronavirus pandemic. The company developed one of the first treatments against COVID-19 and, within a few years, transformed from a relatively small biotech company into one of the world’s best-known vaccine makers. But after the pandemic ended, demand for COVID-19 products began to decline, taking Moderna’s revenue and investor interest down with it.

Everything changed on Wednesday. Moderna shares jumped 177% after the company released late-stage trial results for its personalized cancer vaccine. In a single trading session, Moderna’s market capitalization increased by about $30 billion. The stock is now trading at around $174, compared with roughly $65 before the rally.

View post on X Loading...

The tweet was deleted by the author.

But we saved everything 🙂.

The move was accompanied by a sharp increase in investor activity. Trading volume in Moderna shares exceeded the 50-day average by more than 15 times. At the same time, Merck shares, whose company is developing the therapy together with Moderna, gained more than 10%. The rally also spread to other mRNA drug developers, with BioNTech shares rising by about 20%.

The surge was particularly painful for traders betting against Moderna. According to S3 Partners, their losses amounted to about $5.5 billion in just one day. Before the trial results were released, around 13.5%–14% of Moderna’s freely traded shares were sold short, so the sharp increase in the stock price forced some traders to close their positions, adding further momentum to the rally.

What investors saw in the results

The rally was triggered by results from a Phase 3 trial of a personalized mRNA vaccine. The study involved more than 1,100 patients with high-risk melanoma following surgical removal of their tumors. The vaccine, used in combination with Keytruda, helped keep the disease from returning for longer and reduced the risk of it spreading.

The treatment is developed individually for each patient. Doctors analyze the mutations in a specific tumor and use them to produce an mRNA therapy designed to teach the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. In an earlier Phase 2 trial, the combination reduced the risk of melanoma recurrence by about 50% and the risk of the disease spreading by 59%.

That is why investors viewed the results as more than the success of a single drug in one type of cancer. Moderna and Merck are already testing the approach in lung, kidney and bladder cancers, as well as in earlier-stage trials for pancreatic and stomach cancers.

Betting on a host-COVID business

At the same time, Moderna is expanding its portfolio of mRNA-based products. In August, it added a seasonal flu vaccine and also began the first human trials of an experimental vaccine against the Ebola virus.

Oncology could become a much larger business. Moderna is already developing the therapy for several types of cancer, and Leerink analysts raised their 2032 sales forecast for the treatment to $1.4 billion following the melanoma results. Barclays had previously estimated potential sales at around $3 billion by 2035.

The company is also cutting costs. In the second quarter, research and development expenses fell 7% year over year to $651 million, while the full-year 2026 forecast was reduced from about $3 billion to roughly $2.9 billion. Quarterly revenue came in at $145 million, compared with analysts’ expectations of $103 million.

What are the prospects for the company?

In a single day, Moderna added about $30 billion in market capitalization — far more than can be explained by the melanoma opportunity alone. Investors are already pricing in a broader scenario: success for the personalized mRNA platform across other types of cancer and the emergence of a major new source of revenue for the company.

Moderna now has to justify those expectations. The company still needs to present the full Phase 3 results, navigate the regulatory process and prove that the approach works in other tumors. After the stock nearly tripled, the market is likely to be especially sensitive to any delays, weak data or setbacks in future trials.

This material may contain third-party opinions, none of the data and information on this webpage constitutes investment advice according to our Disclaimer. While we adhere to strict Editorial Integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners.