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2022-01-17
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Moderna: High Upside Potential At Current Prices
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One of the most promising potential solutions for helping prevent or cure some of the most intractable diseases known to man is mRNA technology and Moderna has not only developed the most advanced mRNA platform but has also built out significant mRNA manufacturing capacity worldwide. There are many companies that are in various stages of developing mRNA technology but there are very few that have advanced as far as Moderna has in both developing mRNA technology, as well as having the manufacturing capacity and other commercial infrastructure to produce billions of doses of a vaccine per year. At this time, the only companies that have both the knowledge of advanced mRNA techniques and the manufacturing capacity to compete in the same arena as Moderna is the BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) - Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) partnership.</p><p>Moderna has a significant first mover competitive advantage by not only developing the COVID-19 vaccine but also by scaling the company's mRNA manufacturing capacity. It is one thing to produce mRNA in a lab setting but quite another to safely mass produce effective vaccines in regulator approved manufacturing sites around the world. Moderna's first mover advantage has translated into a very large war chest of cash from COVID-19 sales in which the company can use to further its lead by investing in advancing mRNA technology, improving mRNA manufacturing processes, and building out significant manufacturing capability worldwide. Moderna is also well along in developing one of the deepest drug pipelines in the world.</p><p>While a first mover advantage is not exactly a moat, for the next several years at least, Moderna should enjoy a significant lead in developing many different mRNA-based therapies or vaccines to treat numerous difficult to treat diseases. Moderna currently has 40 different drug development programs, which is almost unheard of for such a relatively young biotech company that only two years ago was simply a research outfit. In the end, Moderna's mRNA platform and manufacturing capacity should result in significant long-term upside for investors buying into Moderna's stock today.</p><p>Advantages of mRNA Technology</p><p>The reason why Moderna was able to rapidly develop a COVID-19 solution, while at the same time continuing to build out a significant number of drug development programs is because of the nature of mRNA technology.</p><blockquote>The development and manufacturing of mRNA for use as therapeutics<i>and</i>vaccines are comparatively simple, scalable<i>and</i>extremely rapid.</blockquote><blockquote>Source:Millapore Sigma</blockquote><p>There are numerous advantages of a mRNA platform over traditional drug making. The major advantages of a mRNA platform that were demonstrated by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic was the ability to take the sequence of the virus and quickly move from development, to clinical trials, to approval, to mass manufacturing of a vaccine in a very rapid period of time. As Moderna and others get more experience and regulatory bodies get more comfortable with mRNA technology, I can see the day in the future where the response time of discovery of a virulent virus to clinical trials of a vaccine, to vaccine approval, to mass manufacturing of the vaccine could significantly shrink. Right now, it looks like it takes about 9 months to a year to move from virus discovery to eventually making it into people's arms. Eventually, this response time could shrink to matter of a few months.</p><p>Omnicron was first identified as a variant around November 24, 2021. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a CNBC interview that clinical trials for an Omnicron vaccine will start soon and a Omnicron vaccine should be available by fall. This type of rapid response to infectious diseases is unheard of before now and as time goes along, mRNA platform companies could not only become proficient in rapidly producing vaccines against specific viruses but also become proficient at producing vaccines against specific strains of a virus, in specific regions of the world. Among the reason why I think Moderna is building manufacturing capacity in different countries and regions of the world is because vaccines will eventually be less of a one size fits all countries and be more along the lines of regional manufacturing sites creating vaccines specific for the most prevalent viruses and strains of virus in that specific region.</p><p>Another potential huge advantage of a mRNA platform is flexibility. Theoretically, a mRNA manufacturing plant can be relatively rapidly switched to producing any other mRNA-based drug. It is possible that a mRNA plant that makes COVID-19 vaccines could be rapidly switched to making an Ebola vaccine, for instance. This is in contrast to the manufacturing process of many traditional drugs that require a dedicated plant to produce a drug. This could make the CapEx involved for producing multiple different types of drugs, far lower than a traditional drug manufacturer.</p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted exactly how easy it is to change the vaccine simply by plugging the genetic sequence of any virus that Moderna wants to target right into its basic mRNA platform. This is not only useful for being able to attack different strains of COVID-19 but also means that Moderna has the ability of using the sequence of any virus whether that be the flu, HIV, CMV, Tuberculosis, Zika, or Rabies and quickly produce a vaccine ready for testing.</p><p><b>COVID-19 Progress</b></p><p>COVID-19 has totally changed the fortunes of Moderna within just two years. Up until 2020, Moderna was only a little-known drug research outfit that had very little revenues but being the second company to bring a viable vaccine to protect against COVID-19 into US markets, has made Moderna very widely known worldwide and the company has built a huge brand that is on the verge of becoming a giant within the drug industry.</p><p>There is real world evidence that up until now, Moderna has produced the most effective COVID-19 vaccine. Data from all over the world supports the very strong efficacy that was shown in phase III data in the USA. Recently, Singapore released data showing that COVID-19 deaths were lowest among Moderna takers. Singapore had 802 deaths out of which 70% were unvaccinated. Between Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, Moderna had the least death rates:</p><ul><li>11 deaths per 100,000: Sinovac</li><li>7.8 deaths per 100,000: Sinopharm</li><li>6.2 deaths per 100,000: Pfizer/BioNTech</li><li>1 death per 100,000: Moderna</li></ul><p>Over the course of 2021, Moderna shipped 807 million doses of Spikevax, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, to many different locations around the world, with around 25% of those doses going to low-income and middle-income countries. Moderna reported recently during the JPMorgan 40th Annual Healthcare Conference on January 10th, that the preliminary estimate for Spikevax product sales in 2021 is around $17.5 billion.</p><p>Because of the huge demand for Moderna's vaccine worldwide, for a decent part of 2021, the company was supply constrained but that situation is beginning to turn around now. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel attributes the reason for supply constraints as Moderna having a higher dose than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The higher dose was a big drain on manufacturing resources. Moderna has since built out additional manufacturing capacity over the course of 2021 and is now in much better shape to address COVID-19 demand. In Q4, Moderna shipped 300 million doses, which is a run rate of 1.2 billion doses. Moderna believes that they can produce two billion to three billion doses of boosters over the course of 2022, if necessary.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f41315e4b985027121aaf2dfca75dc71\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"356\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Moderna Spikevax advanced purchase agreements</span></p><p>Because COVID-19 vaccine makers have lately been having to play whack-a-mole with new variants, the demand for Spikevax is still rising. As can be seen from the above graphic, from November 4th to January 10th, Moderna has gained and additional $1.5 billion in advanced purchase agreements ("APA") and $0.5 Billion in options, with those numbers being mostly heavily weighted toward the first half of the year. Moderna is still having ongoing discussions with many countries about whether additional vaccines will need to be added to address the fall moving into winter of '22. I expect that when all is said and done, Moderna could wind up signing additional APAs over the course of the year. So, it looks like 2022 might again be another banner year for Moderna.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e1246421e026d6fd58bec48546a19260\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"362\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>How COVID-19 is likely to evolve</span></p><p>Currently, the world is in the midst of variant reinfection waves, which will likely continue throughout 2022 but by 2023 COVID-19 should become more seasonal and endemic. Morbidity waves are expected to become lower and lower over the next several years and there is a good chance that COVID-19 will be seen more like the flu is perceived today within a year or two. Post-pandemic, COVID-19 is expected to mostly only affect people aged 50-plus, health care workers, immunocompromised people and other high-risk populations. These groups will likely need boosters to ensure that they do not get severe disease and hospitalization. As COVID-19 winds down, demand for Spikevax will probably begin dropping in the 2023-to-2024-time frame. This is why some people have been predicting revenue declines for Moderna. Well, what is Moderna's post pandemic plan to replace the likely COVID-19 vaccine declining revenues?</p><p><b>Moderna's Plan Moving Forward</b></p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a9965c1224ac3e57e5a4c764bbb50975\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"360\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Moderna Product Strategy in 2022</span></p><p>The initial way that Moderna plans on countering the likely COVID-19 vaccine decline is by bundling different seasonal respiratory vaccines together into just one vaccine. The days of getting COVID-19 specific vaccine seem to be waning and a pan-respiratory vaccine will likely compete extremely effectively with any laggards coming to the market late with only a COVID-19 solution.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4995949c9a253ebe6663e2deeb5ccce3\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"360\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Moderna vision for pan-respiratory vaccine</span></p><p>Moderna's vision is that an annual single-dose pan-respiratory booster can be customized to fit different demographics, different geographies, and different respiratory diseases over time. Eventually, Moderna even expects to target specific strains of respiratory diseases in specific regions. I wouldn't be surprised if a pan-respiratory vaccine starts to appear within two years.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/eb027ec45a0750fdcd8b65307c4008d1\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"359\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Moderna Strategy After COVID-19</span></p><p>Unlike vaccine technology from companies like Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX), mRNA can be used for many other different purposes besides infectious diseases.Novavax's pipeline only consists of 9 programs that target 5 other infectious diseases other than COVID-19. Most of Novavax's pipeline is mostly concerned with respiratory diseases, with only one direct contact latent virus, Ebola, appearing on the list.</p><p>In contrast, Moderna is much further ahead in developing solutions against multiple latent viruses that are a lot more prevalent than Ebola. The first ones being targeted and are already in clinical trials are CMV and EBV, with HIV soon to begin trials. CMV is Moderna's most advanced drug in the pipeline and the first patient has already been dosed in phase III trials. Besides CMV, EBV, and HIV, there a many other undisclosed latent viruses being worked on in the labs.</p><p>The next area that Moderna is prioritizing is in developing therapeutics using mRNA technology which allows the company to produce oncology products, cardio products, rare genetic disease products and autoimmune disease products. This is an area that has significant upside for Moderna. Moderna will be using totally new approaches to develop solutions against cancer and develop solutions for diseases that currently have no significant solutions. Recently, Moderna formed a partnership with Carisma Therapeutics. Moderna plans to combine its mRNA technology with Carisma Therapeutics' engineered macrophage technology to develop solutions against solid tumor cancer. The reason why this is important is because while autologous CAR-Ts have really good data in Heme malignancies, which are blood cancers, they have not been very effective in solid tumors and eighty percent of cancer patients die of solid tumors. I won't go deep into the science behind it but scientist know the reasons why CAR-Ts are not as effective with solid tumors, and both companies think Carisma Therapeutics' CAR-Macrophage's technology combined with mRNA technology can produce revolutionary new ways to essentially cure the most prevalent and difficult to treat form of cancer deaths which are solid tumors.</p><blockquote>Moderna's deep expertise in mRNA and LNP technologies opens up a potentially game-changing opportunity for engineered macrophages. In vivo delivery directly to monocytes and macrophages enables an off-the-shelf therapeutic approach that uses the patients' own cells to provide a truly personalized treatment.</blockquote><blockquote>Source: Steven Kelly, President and Chief Executive Officer of Carisma</blockquote><p>Right now, there is no way to factor in the upside of Moderna potentially developing a significantly better solution to attacking and possibly curing solid tumor cancer. The therapies that could come out of partnerships like the one Moderna has with Carisma could potentially produce home runs just as big, if not bigger than the COVID-19 vaccine.</p><p>The fourth area that Moderna is developing solutions using gene-editing enzymes. Moderna has only seriously got into gene editing relatively recently when the company signed a collaboration with Metagenomi. For those unaware,gene-editing is the same strategy that companies like Editas (NASDAQ:EDIT) and CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRSP) are pursuing. The focus for the Metagenomi collaboration will be on serious genetic diseases.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8041f6f8edad22795cbe4a3295d68973\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"361\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Moderna capital allocation priorities</span></p><p>Moderna has already started spending its huge cash flows derived from COVID-19 vaccine sales. I just wanted to include the above slide in this article because it shows that Moderna's number one capital allocation priority is investing in R&D, manufacturing infrastructure and continuing to build out the company's commercial infrastructure. The second priority is investing in external investment opportunities, either in the form of collaborations or M&A. The collaborations with Metagenomi and Carisma Therapeutics are examples of this second priority.</p><p><b>Manufacturing Capacity</b></p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/36484ebc09cffbacbfa8ce06eea49f22\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"357\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Moderna In-country vaccine manufacturing</span></p><p>There is a rather large set of existing potential competitors to Moderna and there are also countries like India that are supporting rising home-grown mRNA platform companies. One of the ways that Moderna is keeping ahead of such efforts from competitors is using its $15.3 billion in cash and $3.2 billion in Free Cash Flow at the end of Q3, to build out significant mRNA manufacturing capability across the world. Moderna has announced in principle agreements with Australia and Canadato build out mRNA vaccine manufacturing plants within those countries. These announcements are in addition to the plans to build a factory capable of producing up to 500 million vaccine doses in Africa each year. I believe Moderna is still in the process of choosing which African country the manufacturing site will be located in.</p><p><b>Risks</b></p><p>The major risk that Moderna faces in the short term is revenue from the COVID-19 declining faster than Moderna can get other vaccines or therapies on to market and show superior results. The closest drug to approval is a CMV vaccine. An approval of the CMV vaccine would likely shoot Moderna's stock higher because it would show that mRNA is viable for addressing other diseases. A CMV rejection would likely drop Moderna's stock much lower.</p><p>Another major risk for Moderna are patent disputes and lawsuits. Moderna recently had to back down in a dispute with the NIH over COVID-19 patents and Moderna could also soon face a patent infringement lawsuit from Arbutus (NASDAQ:ABUS) over the COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, it is unknown how these disputes will impact Moderna over the longer term.</p><p><b>Analyst Price Targets</b></p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0c0e5d79d00e415b16e4141b35eaaad4\" tg-width=\"461\" tg-height=\"416\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Moderna Analyst Price Targets</span></p><p>The above is based on 15 Wall Street analysts offering 12-month price targets for Moderna in the last 3 months. The average price target is $289.07 with a high forecast of $506.00 and a low forecast of $86.00. The average price target represents a 38% increase from the last price of $210.17.</p><p><b>Valuation</b></p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/19ae061dd4c060bb37f43ff041dc2577\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"450\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4ff983411a9b9571f66378eddc98653c\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"450\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/259a902789541a798fdf388cf46d6b37\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"450\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>The comparisons between these three relatively new biotechs with COVID-19 vaccines already shipping, shows Moderna is the most highly valued stock but BioNTech has the best revenue growth and operating margins. Going strictly by value, BioNTech is probably the best buy but in reality, all three companies are biotechs, in which one hit product or one large dismal failure can change the fortunes of the company. I view all three companies as very speculative, even with the success achieved by producing solutions for the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>I am not a big fan of trying to use valuation techniques on any biotech company. There is simply no way to value the future potential success or failure of the bets that many biotech companies make. If Moderna is part of curing solid tumor cancer, for instance, Moderna's current valuation will be viewed in hindsight as being way too low. If most of Moderna's pipeline fails then the valuation will be viewed in hindsight as being way too high.</p><p><b>Conclusion</b></p><p>Moderna is a high risk, high reward bet on mRNA technology succeeding in either preventing or curing many difficult to treat diseases. This is a stock that is strictly for long-term aggressive growth investors that are interested in speculating on potential home-run type products over a five-to-ten-year time frame. The risk that Moderna is only a one-product company is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine was so high, that is serves as a kind of proof of concept that a mRNA platform can produce other novel ways of addressing other difficult diseases.</p><p>The 58% pullback from Moderna's all-time high of $497.49 gives aggressive growth investors a chance to buy into a company with significant potential upside. However, risk averse or investors sensitive to short-term price movements should avoid Moderna's stock for now because there is significant downside risk if COVID-19 revenue drops off too rapidly before Moderna can show that it can achieve similar success in addressing other diseases.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Moderna: High Upside Potential At Current Prices</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; 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}\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nModerna: High Upside Potential At Current Prices\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-01-17 17:42 GMT+8 <a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4479930-moderna-high-upside-potential-at-current-prices><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryModerna has a significant first mover competitive advantage by not only developing the COVID-19 vaccine but also by scaling the company's mRNA manufacturing capacity.Moderna recently reported ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4479930-moderna-high-upside-potential-at-current-prices\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"MRNA":"Moderna, Inc."},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4479930-moderna-high-upside-potential-at-current-prices","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1131862461","content_text":"SummaryModerna has a significant first mover competitive advantage by not only developing the COVID-19 vaccine but also by scaling the company's mRNA manufacturing capacity.Moderna recently reported the preliminary COVID-19 estimate for product sales in 2021 as being approximately $17.5 billion.Recently, Singapore released data showing that COVID-19 deaths were the lowest among Moderna vaccine takers.One of the ways that Moderna is keeping ahead of potential mRNA competition is using its $15.3 billion in cash and $3.2 billion in Free Cash Flow to continue building out significant mRNA manufacturing capability across the world.The 58% pullback from Moderna's all-time high of $497.49 gives aggressive growth investors a chance to buy into a company with significant upside potential.Maddie Meyer/Getty Images NewsModerna (NASDAQ:MRNA) has extremely high upside from being a first mover in developing the world's most advanced mRNA platform. One of the most promising potential solutions for helping prevent or cure some of the most intractable diseases known to man is mRNA technology and Moderna has not only developed the most advanced mRNA platform but has also built out significant mRNA manufacturing capacity worldwide. There are many companies that are in various stages of developing mRNA technology but there are very few that have advanced as far as Moderna has in both developing mRNA technology, as well as having the manufacturing capacity and other commercial infrastructure to produce billions of doses of a vaccine per year. At this time, the only companies that have both the knowledge of advanced mRNA techniques and the manufacturing capacity to compete in the same arena as Moderna is the BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) - Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) partnership.Moderna has a significant first mover competitive advantage by not only developing the COVID-19 vaccine but also by scaling the company's mRNA manufacturing capacity. It is one thing to produce mRNA in a lab setting but quite another to safely mass produce effective vaccines in regulator approved manufacturing sites around the world. Moderna's first mover advantage has translated into a very large war chest of cash from COVID-19 sales in which the company can use to further its lead by investing in advancing mRNA technology, improving mRNA manufacturing processes, and building out significant manufacturing capability worldwide. Moderna is also well along in developing one of the deepest drug pipelines in the world.While a first mover advantage is not exactly a moat, for the next several years at least, Moderna should enjoy a significant lead in developing many different mRNA-based therapies or vaccines to treat numerous difficult to treat diseases. Moderna currently has 40 different drug development programs, which is almost unheard of for such a relatively young biotech company that only two years ago was simply a research outfit. In the end, Moderna's mRNA platform and manufacturing capacity should result in significant long-term upside for investors buying into Moderna's stock today.Advantages of mRNA TechnologyThe reason why Moderna was able to rapidly develop a COVID-19 solution, while at the same time continuing to build out a significant number of drug development programs is because of the nature of mRNA technology.The development and manufacturing of mRNA for use as therapeuticsandvaccines are comparatively simple, scalableandextremely rapid.Source:Millapore SigmaThere are numerous advantages of a mRNA platform over traditional drug making. The major advantages of a mRNA platform that were demonstrated by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic was the ability to take the sequence of the virus and quickly move from development, to clinical trials, to approval, to mass manufacturing of a vaccine in a very rapid period of time. As Moderna and others get more experience and regulatory bodies get more comfortable with mRNA technology, I can see the day in the future where the response time of discovery of a virulent virus to clinical trials of a vaccine, to vaccine approval, to mass manufacturing of the vaccine could significantly shrink. Right now, it looks like it takes about 9 months to a year to move from virus discovery to eventually making it into people's arms. Eventually, this response time could shrink to matter of a few months.Omnicron was first identified as a variant around November 24, 2021. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a CNBC interview that clinical trials for an Omnicron vaccine will start soon and a Omnicron vaccine should be available by fall. This type of rapid response to infectious diseases is unheard of before now and as time goes along, mRNA platform companies could not only become proficient in rapidly producing vaccines against specific viruses but also become proficient at producing vaccines against specific strains of a virus, in specific regions of the world. Among the reason why I think Moderna is building manufacturing capacity in different countries and regions of the world is because vaccines will eventually be less of a one size fits all countries and be more along the lines of regional manufacturing sites creating vaccines specific for the most prevalent viruses and strains of virus in that specific region.Another potential huge advantage of a mRNA platform is flexibility. Theoretically, a mRNA manufacturing plant can be relatively rapidly switched to producing any other mRNA-based drug. It is possible that a mRNA plant that makes COVID-19 vaccines could be rapidly switched to making an Ebola vaccine, for instance. This is in contrast to the manufacturing process of many traditional drugs that require a dedicated plant to produce a drug. This could make the CapEx involved for producing multiple different types of drugs, far lower than a traditional drug manufacturer.The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted exactly how easy it is to change the vaccine simply by plugging the genetic sequence of any virus that Moderna wants to target right into its basic mRNA platform. This is not only useful for being able to attack different strains of COVID-19 but also means that Moderna has the ability of using the sequence of any virus whether that be the flu, HIV, CMV, Tuberculosis, Zika, or Rabies and quickly produce a vaccine ready for testing.COVID-19 ProgressCOVID-19 has totally changed the fortunes of Moderna within just two years. Up until 2020, Moderna was only a little-known drug research outfit that had very little revenues but being the second company to bring a viable vaccine to protect against COVID-19 into US markets, has made Moderna very widely known worldwide and the company has built a huge brand that is on the verge of becoming a giant within the drug industry.There is real world evidence that up until now, Moderna has produced the most effective COVID-19 vaccine. Data from all over the world supports the very strong efficacy that was shown in phase III data in the USA. Recently, Singapore released data showing that COVID-19 deaths were lowest among Moderna takers. Singapore had 802 deaths out of which 70% were unvaccinated. Between Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, Moderna had the least death rates:11 deaths per 100,000: Sinovac7.8 deaths per 100,000: Sinopharm6.2 deaths per 100,000: Pfizer/BioNTech1 death per 100,000: ModernaOver the course of 2021, Moderna shipped 807 million doses of Spikevax, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, to many different locations around the world, with around 25% of those doses going to low-income and middle-income countries. Moderna reported recently during the JPMorgan 40th Annual Healthcare Conference on January 10th, that the preliminary estimate for Spikevax product sales in 2021 is around $17.5 billion.Because of the huge demand for Moderna's vaccine worldwide, for a decent part of 2021, the company was supply constrained but that situation is beginning to turn around now. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel attributes the reason for supply constraints as Moderna having a higher dose than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The higher dose was a big drain on manufacturing resources. Moderna has since built out additional manufacturing capacity over the course of 2021 and is now in much better shape to address COVID-19 demand. In Q4, Moderna shipped 300 million doses, which is a run rate of 1.2 billion doses. Moderna believes that they can produce two billion to three billion doses of boosters over the course of 2022, if necessary.Moderna Spikevax advanced purchase agreementsBecause COVID-19 vaccine makers have lately been having to play whack-a-mole with new variants, the demand for Spikevax is still rising. As can be seen from the above graphic, from November 4th to January 10th, Moderna has gained and additional $1.5 billion in advanced purchase agreements (\"APA\") and $0.5 Billion in options, with those numbers being mostly heavily weighted toward the first half of the year. Moderna is still having ongoing discussions with many countries about whether additional vaccines will need to be added to address the fall moving into winter of '22. I expect that when all is said and done, Moderna could wind up signing additional APAs over the course of the year. So, it looks like 2022 might again be another banner year for Moderna.How COVID-19 is likely to evolveCurrently, the world is in the midst of variant reinfection waves, which will likely continue throughout 2022 but by 2023 COVID-19 should become more seasonal and endemic. Morbidity waves are expected to become lower and lower over the next several years and there is a good chance that COVID-19 will be seen more like the flu is perceived today within a year or two. Post-pandemic, COVID-19 is expected to mostly only affect people aged 50-plus, health care workers, immunocompromised people and other high-risk populations. These groups will likely need boosters to ensure that they do not get severe disease and hospitalization. As COVID-19 winds down, demand for Spikevax will probably begin dropping in the 2023-to-2024-time frame. This is why some people have been predicting revenue declines for Moderna. Well, what is Moderna's post pandemic plan to replace the likely COVID-19 vaccine declining revenues?Moderna's Plan Moving ForwardModerna Product Strategy in 2022The initial way that Moderna plans on countering the likely COVID-19 vaccine decline is by bundling different seasonal respiratory vaccines together into just one vaccine. The days of getting COVID-19 specific vaccine seem to be waning and a pan-respiratory vaccine will likely compete extremely effectively with any laggards coming to the market late with only a COVID-19 solution.Moderna vision for pan-respiratory vaccineModerna's vision is that an annual single-dose pan-respiratory booster can be customized to fit different demographics, different geographies, and different respiratory diseases over time. Eventually, Moderna even expects to target specific strains of respiratory diseases in specific regions. I wouldn't be surprised if a pan-respiratory vaccine starts to appear within two years.Moderna Strategy After COVID-19Unlike vaccine technology from companies like Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX), mRNA can be used for many other different purposes besides infectious diseases.Novavax's pipeline only consists of 9 programs that target 5 other infectious diseases other than COVID-19. Most of Novavax's pipeline is mostly concerned with respiratory diseases, with only one direct contact latent virus, Ebola, appearing on the list.In contrast, Moderna is much further ahead in developing solutions against multiple latent viruses that are a lot more prevalent than Ebola. The first ones being targeted and are already in clinical trials are CMV and EBV, with HIV soon to begin trials. CMV is Moderna's most advanced drug in the pipeline and the first patient has already been dosed in phase III trials. Besides CMV, EBV, and HIV, there a many other undisclosed latent viruses being worked on in the labs.The next area that Moderna is prioritizing is in developing therapeutics using mRNA technology which allows the company to produce oncology products, cardio products, rare genetic disease products and autoimmune disease products. This is an area that has significant upside for Moderna. Moderna will be using totally new approaches to develop solutions against cancer and develop solutions for diseases that currently have no significant solutions. Recently, Moderna formed a partnership with Carisma Therapeutics. Moderna plans to combine its mRNA technology with Carisma Therapeutics' engineered macrophage technology to develop solutions against solid tumor cancer. The reason why this is important is because while autologous CAR-Ts have really good data in Heme malignancies, which are blood cancers, they have not been very effective in solid tumors and eighty percent of cancer patients die of solid tumors. I won't go deep into the science behind it but scientist know the reasons why CAR-Ts are not as effective with solid tumors, and both companies think Carisma Therapeutics' CAR-Macrophage's technology combined with mRNA technology can produce revolutionary new ways to essentially cure the most prevalent and difficult to treat form of cancer deaths which are solid tumors.Moderna's deep expertise in mRNA and LNP technologies opens up a potentially game-changing opportunity for engineered macrophages. In vivo delivery directly to monocytes and macrophages enables an off-the-shelf therapeutic approach that uses the patients' own cells to provide a truly personalized treatment.Source: Steven Kelly, President and Chief Executive Officer of CarismaRight now, there is no way to factor in the upside of Moderna potentially developing a significantly better solution to attacking and possibly curing solid tumor cancer. The therapies that could come out of partnerships like the one Moderna has with Carisma could potentially produce home runs just as big, if not bigger than the COVID-19 vaccine.The fourth area that Moderna is developing solutions using gene-editing enzymes. Moderna has only seriously got into gene editing relatively recently when the company signed a collaboration with Metagenomi. For those unaware,gene-editing is the same strategy that companies like Editas (NASDAQ:EDIT) and CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRSP) are pursuing. The focus for the Metagenomi collaboration will be on serious genetic diseases.Moderna capital allocation prioritiesModerna has already started spending its huge cash flows derived from COVID-19 vaccine sales. I just wanted to include the above slide in this article because it shows that Moderna's number one capital allocation priority is investing in R&D, manufacturing infrastructure and continuing to build out the company's commercial infrastructure. The second priority is investing in external investment opportunities, either in the form of collaborations or M&A. The collaborations with Metagenomi and Carisma Therapeutics are examples of this second priority.Manufacturing CapacityModerna In-country vaccine manufacturingThere is a rather large set of existing potential competitors to Moderna and there are also countries like India that are supporting rising home-grown mRNA platform companies. One of the ways that Moderna is keeping ahead of such efforts from competitors is using its $15.3 billion in cash and $3.2 billion in Free Cash Flow at the end of Q3, to build out significant mRNA manufacturing capability across the world. Moderna has announced in principle agreements with Australia and Canadato build out mRNA vaccine manufacturing plants within those countries. These announcements are in addition to the plans to build a factory capable of producing up to 500 million vaccine doses in Africa each year. I believe Moderna is still in the process of choosing which African country the manufacturing site will be located in.RisksThe major risk that Moderna faces in the short term is revenue from the COVID-19 declining faster than Moderna can get other vaccines or therapies on to market and show superior results. The closest drug to approval is a CMV vaccine. An approval of the CMV vaccine would likely shoot Moderna's stock higher because it would show that mRNA is viable for addressing other diseases. A CMV rejection would likely drop Moderna's stock much lower.Another major risk for Moderna are patent disputes and lawsuits. Moderna recently had to back down in a dispute with the NIH over COVID-19 patents and Moderna could also soon face a patent infringement lawsuit from Arbutus (NASDAQ:ABUS) over the COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, it is unknown how these disputes will impact Moderna over the longer term.Analyst Price TargetsModerna Analyst Price TargetsThe above is based on 15 Wall Street analysts offering 12-month price targets for Moderna in the last 3 months. The average price target is $289.07 with a high forecast of $506.00 and a low forecast of $86.00. The average price target represents a 38% increase from the last price of $210.17.ValuationData by YChartsData by YChartsData by YChartsThe comparisons between these three relatively new biotechs with COVID-19 vaccines already shipping, shows Moderna is the most highly valued stock but BioNTech has the best revenue growth and operating margins. Going strictly by value, BioNTech is probably the best buy but in reality, all three companies are biotechs, in which one hit product or one large dismal failure can change the fortunes of the company. I view all three companies as very speculative, even with the success achieved by producing solutions for the COVID-19 pandemic.I am not a big fan of trying to use valuation techniques on any biotech company. There is simply no way to value the future potential success or failure of the bets that many biotech companies make. If Moderna is part of curing solid tumor cancer, for instance, Moderna's current valuation will be viewed in hindsight as being way too low. If most of Moderna's pipeline fails then the valuation will be viewed in hindsight as being way too high.ConclusionModerna is a high risk, high reward bet on mRNA technology succeeding in either preventing or curing many difficult to treat diseases. This is a stock that is strictly for long-term aggressive growth investors that are interested in speculating on potential home-run type products over a five-to-ten-year time frame. The risk that Moderna is only a one-product company is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine was so high, that is serves as a kind of proof of concept that a mRNA platform can produce other novel ways of addressing other difficult diseases.The 58% pullback from Moderna's all-time high of $497.49 gives aggressive growth investors a chance to buy into a company with significant potential upside. However, risk averse or investors sensitive to short-term price movements should avoid Moderna's stock for now because there is significant downside risk if COVID-19 revenue drops off too rapidly before Moderna can show that it can achieve similar success in addressing other diseases.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":321,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"CN","currentLanguage":"CN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":4,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ZH_CN"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"isTiger":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"url":"/m/post/697875648"}
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