Moderna Inc.'s headquarters. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, on Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Moderna The biotechnology company on Monday lowered its 2025 sales guidance by about $1 billion due to some potential headwinds later this year, as the biotech company continues to cut costs and expand its portfolio.
Moderna now expects 2025 revenue to range between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, most of which will come in the second half of the year. The majority of those sales will come from Moderna's Covid vaccine and its newly launched respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, according to a statement.
The guidance is below the previous forecast range of $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion issued in September. At the time, the company said it expected to break even on an operating cash basis in 2028 — deferred from 2026 — on revenue of $6 billion.
Moderna shares fell 18% in pre-market trading Monday.
“As we head into 2025, there are a few uncertainties that we're planning for,” Moderna CFO Jamie Mock told CNBC. “As of this time period, we're planning for it to be a headwind. It could be a headwind, but right now we're seeing it as a headwind.”
Mock pointed to four factors that could impact sales, including increased competition in the Covid market. Moderna's share of the U.S. retail market for Covid injections fell to 40% at the end of 2024 from 48% in 2023, and the company is preparing for another decline this year, he said.
He pointed out Sanofi They will be jointly marketed NovavaxCovid vaccine worldwide under a new agreement, which could make this vaccine more competitive.
The second factor is lower vaccination rates, which are down about 7% overall in the U.S. retail market in the fall of 2024 compared to the same time in 2023, Mock said. The final two factors are timing around manufacturing contracts with a few countries, and uncertainty. About what CDC advisors will recommend for RSV revaccination.
But Mock noted that the company expects to reduce 2025 cash cost expenses by $1 billion, with plans for additional 2026 cost reductions of $500 million.
“We're taking on the right amount of cost to conserve our money,” Mock said. “We are excited to invest and diversify our portfolio.”
The announcement comes as Moderna charts a way forward after a rapid decline in demand for its Covid vaccine, its only commercially available product until the RSV shot entered the market last year. It also comes ahead of Moderna's presentation at the annual JPMorgan Healthcare conference, one of the largest gatherings of healthcare executives in the world and a hotbed of deal activity in the industry.
Revenue from Moderna's two doses is in line with its 2024 forecast, at about $3 billion to $3.1 billion. In November, the company said its updated Covid shot had the benefit of gaining approval in the US three weeks earlier than the previous version of the vaccine in 2023.
However, those sales represent a sharp decline from the $6.7 billion Moderna's Covid vaccine booked in 2023 and the $18 billion it generated in 2022, as fewer people rolled up their sleeves to get updated shots.
Moderna plans to bolster its portfolio with 10 new product approvals over the next three years, including a combination shot targeting COVID and influenza and a “next generation” COVID shot. The company said Monday it could see three approvals in 2025 alone.
The company is betting on a pipeline built around its messenger RNA platform, the technology used in its Covid vaccine and RSV shot.
