Moderna Inc.’s MRNA -6.19% Covid-19 vaccine lifted the biotech company to its first-ever quarterly profit, a milestone in the rise of a company that burst into the spotlight last year as it rapidly developed a shot against the coronavirus.
The vaccine brought Moderna revenue of $1.73 billion in the first quarter, reflecting three full months of its use in the U.S. and the increase of international sales, the company said Thursday. Moderna, based in Cambridge, Mass., recognized 102 million doses as revenue in the quarter and said it expects to deliver 200 million to 250 million doses in the April-to-June period.
Vaccine sales were by far the largest contributor to Moderna’s total revenue, which rose to $1.94 billion, from $8 million a year earlier. The company logged a profit of $2.84 a share, compared with a loss of 35 cents a share in 2020’s first quarter.
Wall Street analysts had been forecasting a profit of $2.20 a share and sales of $2.06 billion, according to FactSet.
Moderna’s work on Covid-19 vaccines has transformed the company in the space of a year. As of the end of March, its workforce had grown to about 1,500 people, from about 830 people a year earlier. Quarterly research-and-development expenses more than tripled to $401 million, from $115 million a year earlier, as clinical development and new hiring related to the vaccine raised costs.
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Of the roughly 250 million Covid-19 vaccine doses given in the U.S. so far, more than 108 million have been Moderna shots, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of the rest were shots from Pfizer Inc., an older and larger competitor, and its partner BioNTech SE.
Both those vaccines—the first two to receive emergency-use authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration last year–make use of genetic material called messenger RNA to prime the body’s immune system to fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Moderna, which went public in 2018, had been a champion of the technique’s potential, but the technology had not been applied at a large scale before the pandemic.
Even as vaccines have slowed the spread of Covid-19 in the U.S., Moderna and other vaccine makers are grappling with how to use the shots to fight emerging variants of the coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Moderna said a preliminary study showed that additional booster shots—given after the initial two-dose regime—could be helpful in increasing people’s resistance to SARS-CoV-2 variants. Subjects in the study got the booster shots six to eight months after their second dose of Moderna’s vaccine and later showed higher levels of immune-system agents called neutralizing antibodies against two variants of concern.
Write to Matt Grossman at [email protected]
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