Moderna’s Bancel Prepares for Transition Year as COVID Vaccine Sales Wane

Angelica Peebles and Robert Langreth

(Bloomberg) — Moderna Inc. is looking for potential approval of two new vaccines this year to help compensate for waning sales of its COVID-19 shot, according to Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel.

Sales of the COVID vaccine, Spikevax, will be at least $5 billion this year, a figure that could rise as the company signs additional government contracts and starts selling to private companies in the US this year, Bancel said Monday in an interview at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. Last year’s sales were about $18.4 billion, the company said in a statement.

This year represents a transitional period as Moderna expects to share late-stage trial data from experimental vaccines for two other diseases, respiratory syncytial virus  and seasonal influenza, two of the three that created this season’s “tripledemic” of respiratory outbreaks, along with COVID. Moderna has 48 development programs underway, and its board has approved a research and development budget of about $4.5 billion for 2023, the company said.

The shares rose 2.6% at 2:51 p.m. in New York. They lost 29% last year.

Moderna will soon divulge data on the two experimental vaccines, setting up the possibility it will introduce the vaccines later this year, Bancel said. The drugmaker now has two priority review vouchers that entitle the company to fast US regulatory review of specific drugs. Moderna received one upon the approval of its COVID vaccine and said Monday it had bought another from an undisclosed company.