ModernaMRNA

hit the jackpot by delivering what the world needed most: a ticket back to normalcy. Now, it’s aiming for another game-changer — offering hope to those battling cancer for a shot at reclaiming their lives.

Two-shot wonder: With Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine no longer in high demand, sales of its only product have cratered. The latest numbers show a whopping 91% drop in revenue compared to the same quarter last year. But investors aren’t fretting over the dip; they’re already looking ahead to Moderna’s next act.

• Moderna’s betting on a rebound, projecting a “return to revenue growth” by 2025 — with the long-awaited approval of its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine this year.
• With ongoing late-stage vaccine trials for Epstein-Barr, Varicella-Zoster virus, and norovirus, the company expects additional product launches to boost sales by 2026.

It’s getting personal (cancer treatments)

Moderna’s most promising frontier might be in personalized cancer vaccines, offering potential cures for kidney, pancreatic, and breast cancers without the grueling side effects of chemotherapy. Moderna’s Kyle Holen told Axios that this treatment “basically trains our immune system to know what to fight.” And with cancer rates rising among the youth, these personalized treatments can’t come soon enough.

• Last month, Moderna and MerckMRK
  started phase 3 international trials for the world’s first mRNA treatment for melanoma, which impacts 132K people yearly and is the deadliest US skin cancer.
• This groundbreaking vaccine primes the immune system to target the patient’s unique cancer, cutting the risk of recurrence in half, as shown in phase 2 trials.

Race against money: Breakthroughs in CRISPR and targeted therapies, which identify and attack specific cancer cells, have sparked hope among patients and investors alike. In the past year, big pharma has made several large acquisitions to ramp up drug portfolios ahead of an impending patent cliff — with many focusing their efforts on cancer drugs. While many of these treatments are still in early-stage trials, it’s a promising time for cancer patients, and Moderna hopes it can parlay that to secure its next success before its COVID cash pile runs dry.