In its fourth-quarter earnings report, Moderna’s revenue was down substantially from 2023. Separately, media reports reveal anticipated cuts to the company’s digital team.
Moderna continues to struggle to find its footing in a post-pandemic market—though CEO Stéphane Bancel said on Friday that the biotech is set to turn around its commercial performance and achieve “long-term growth.”
Bancel made his statement alongside the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year financial report. Moderna recorded a total revenue of $966 million for the quarter and $3.2 billion for the whole year. These numbers represent a steep decline from its $2.81 billion Q4 2023 sales and $6.8 billion full-year 2023 revenue.
Despite the lower numbers, the company nevertheless surpassed the consensus estimate of $941 million in Q4 sales. However, it also exceeded expectations in terms of losses. On a per-share basis, the company lost $2.91, whereas analysts projected a loss of $2.68. Overall, Moderna lost a net of $1.1 billion in the quarter, whereas it recorded a net profit of $217 million in Q4 2023.
The higher-than-expected losses were due to excessive cost of sales, which amounted to $739 million in the quarter and includes a $45 million payment in third-party royalties, $193 million in inventory write-downs and $259 million in wind-down expenditures. Moderna also recorded a $238 million one-time non-cash charge in connection with a manufacturing contract that it terminated in the quarter.
It’s no surprise that Moderna earned the top spot of most shorted S&P 500 healthcare stocks for the last three months of 2024, according to Seeking Alpha.
For 2025, the company is expecting $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion in total revenue, a forecast that Jefferies analysts say represents a 33% year-on-year decline, likely due to “increased competition” and “pricing pressure” in the U.S., along with an expected dip in vaccination rates.
Amidst the challenging financial results, Moderna is looking to lay off about 50 employees on its digital team, or about 10% of roles within its two digital departments, Fierce Biotech reported.
Moderna’s Myriad Challenges
Despite the dramatic contraction in the coronavirus market, Moderna’s COVID-19 franchise continues to make up the bulk of its business, raking in $923 million in the quarter. This figure represents a 66% year-on-year decline, which the company attributes to the “earlier launch” of its updated vaccinethat shifted its sales to the third quarter.
Moderna’s recently approved respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine mRESVIA made $15 million in the fourth quarter, far below the $23 million consensus.
“RSV will remain negligible in 2025 until we get more visibility” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding additional shots and broader guidelines, according to the Jefferies analysts. “We note the RSV market was down 65% [year-on-year] in 2024.”
Moderna on Friday also announced that the FDA has placed a clinical hold on a Phase III study for its norovirus vaccine candidate after one instance of Guillain-Barré syndrome. The regulatory pause is unlikely to affect the timing of the study’s readout, according to the company.
Not all is bleak for the company, however. Bancel on Friday revealed that its savings campaign has borne fruit and Moderna “has reduced our costs by 27 percent compared to 2023.” The pharma expects to sustain its cost-cutting efforts into 2025 and reduce its expenditure by $1 billion versus 2024.
As for its pipeline, Bancel noted that Moderna is planning to deliver “up to 10 product approvals through 2027,” a goal it plans to meet through the “strong momentum in our late-stage pipeline.” In 2025, for instance, Moderna is expecting pivotal readouts for its seasonal flu, cytomegalovirus and norovirus vaccines, as well as a potential approval for its next-generation COVID-19 shot and an RSV expansion into adults aged 18 to 59 years, as per a company presentation.
