Despite 2025 Revenue Cuts, Moderna Becomes A Speculative Bet On Bird Flu Pandemic Odds
When they say Trump was good for pharmaceutical and biotech stocks, they weren’t kidding. During Trump’s first term, the President helped write the blank check required to speedrun COVID-19 vaccine development, trials, and distribution — $12B and seven months later, Operation Warp Speed brought the first vaccine to market and helped reopen the global economy. It’s a victory the Republican is reluctant to claim, given an increase in anti-vaccine sentiments and his decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization, but he might be faced with a repeat act in his second term.
- Biotech behemoth Moderna has become a speculative trade for investors betting on an emergent bird flu pandemic, with its stock jumping after reports of a bird flu death, a state of emergency in California, and a halt on poultry production in Georgia.
- To date, bird flu cases have been exclusively from animal to person, but with cases rising, a federal agency granted Moderna $590M to “accelerate” work on its bird flu vaccine trials — underlining the urgency to prevent a COVID-like disaster.
At world’s end: Moderna has already done much of the requisite work necessary to do a late-stage trial of its H5 and H7 avian flu vaccines, but the grant gave the biotech firm much-needed reprieve from a 20%+ decline in its stock last week, a product of the decision to cut its 2025 revenue forecast by $1B. With that, Moderna anticipates revenues between $1.5B—2.5B — far off the billions it raked in during the pandemic. But with the prospect of a new pandemic on the horizon, Moderna’s sickly $14.8B market valuation represents a notable risk premium — and one to watch as the threat of bird flu continues to march.
