Amid a decline in COVID-19 vaccinations, shares for two of the top mRNA vaccine manufacturers have dropped considerably this year.
Pfizer’s shares are down about 40 percent, and Moderna’s shares are down 55 percent for this year, coming as both companies recently released guidance on revenue projections. Novavax, which makes a COVID-19 vaccine that doesn’t use mRNA technology, has seen its stock drop by 63 percent for the year.
During the pandemic and after both companies introduced the widely used mRNA vaccines, shares of Moderna and Pfizer have seen steady increases. At one point in mid-September 2021, Moderna was worth nearly $450 per share but as of Friday, it’s down to about $80. For Pfizer, it peaked at around $59 per share in mid-December 2021, but it has dropped to around $30 as of Friday.
Pfizer recently cut around $9 billion from its sales forecast due to declining demand for its COVID-19 vaccine and anti-viral drug Paxlovid. But Moderna reiterated its previous guidance and said it would provide an update on whether to cut its sales forecast around its vaccine in November.
Moderna warned that “it’s too early to accurately project where vaccination rates will land” for the upcoming year. But shares of the company have declined significantly this week, and they’re now at the lowest they’ve been since November 2020, according to Bloomberg.
“The weakening demand for the vaccine and Paxlovid goes to show this really is the transition to post-COVID,” Max Nisen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Bloomberg. “People are going to have to figure out what that looks like well beyond Pfizer.”
With Pfizer scaling back its outlook, the move will likely trigger other companies that profited from COVID-19 products to revise their own projections, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Lucira Health, the maker of COVID-19 tests, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and another test-maker, Ellume, has done the same. Pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories also faced a drop in COVID-19 testing revenue in 2023, the report noted, leading to job cuts.
“COVID-19 vaccine revenue concerns should be at all time high right now,” Hartaj Singh, an analyst at Oppenheimer, told Yahoo Finance. “A good third-quarter print should allay some of these fears. And good guidance early next year on 2024 potential revenues could get the stock’s mojo back.”
Moderna said in its recent regulatory filing that it expects its 2023 sales of its vaccine to be between $6 billion and $8 billion, a reiteration of what it said in a second quarter earnings report.
“As noted previously, if the U.S. market for COVID-19 vaccines is approximately 50 million administered doses, Moderna still expects to be in the bottom half of the disclosed range; if the U.S. market is approximately 100 million administered doses, Moderna still expects to be in the top half of the disclosed range,” the company statement said.
Last week, Pfizer said in a report that it expects sales of its vaccine will be about $2 billion lower than the previously expected forecast due to lower-than-expected rates of people taking the shot.
It came weeks after U.S. federal regulators in September approved and recommended Moderna’s and Pfizer’s latest bivalent COVID-19 booster, as well as Novavax’s vaccine. But recent data shows that rollout appears to be relatively slow, with about 10 million people, or approximately 3 percent of Americans, having received the booster. That figure is up from 7 million a week before.
Department and Health and Human Services (HHS) officials told The Epoch Times this week that they plan to keep distributing more doses of the vaccines and that the government isn’t concerned about possible waste.
“The administration remains committed to pulling every lever at its disposal during the fall respiratory vaccination campaign, encouraging the American public to stay up to date on their vaccines to keep themselves and their loved ones safe,” an HHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Thursday. “As a result of these efforts, around 10 million Americans have been vaccinated since the updated vaccines were authorized, and recommended last month.”
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have also dropped over the past several weeks after rising over the summer, according to data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Deaths, emergency room visits, and case numbers have also dropped.
The CDC issued a report on Oct. 6 asserting that COVID-19 remains a “public health threat” for older Americans and called on people again to get the updated booster that was recently approved. Older adults still make up the majority of hospitalizations across the United States, the report said.
In a separate report, the CDC stated it is anticipating a “moderate COVID-19 wave” for the winter but stipulated the virus “could peak earlier than last season, however, because of limited summer activity compared to past years.”
From The Epoch Times