Moderna (MRNA) earnings Q4 2023

Moderna on Thursday posted a surprise quarterly profit, partly boosted by deferred revenue, whilst the corporate saw slumping sales from its Covid vaccine, its only marketable product. 

The outcomes cap a rocky 12 months for the biotech company and other Covid vaccine makers, which all saw revenue plunge because the world continued to emerge from pandemic and relied less on protective shots and coverings.

Here’s what Moderna reported for the fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly often called Refinitiv:

• Earnings per share: 55 cents. That might not be comparable to a lack of 97 cents expected by analysts.  
• Revenue: $2.81 billion vs. $2.50 billion

Moderna posted a net income of $217 million, or 55 cents per share, for the fourth quarter. That compares with a net income of $1.47 billion, or $3.61 per share, reported in the course of the year-ago period.

The biotech company booked fourth-quarter sales of $2.81 billion, with sales of its Covid shot dropping 43% from the identical period a 12 months ago. That decline was primarily driven by lower vaccine volumes, but was partially offset by the next average selling price of the jab, in line with Moderna.

Notably, the corporate said it recorded $600 million in deferred revenue in the course of the quarter related to the corporate’s work with Gavi, a nongovernmental global vaccine organization that coordinated a world shot distribution program. 

But Moderna CFO Jamey Mock told CNBC in an interview that the deferred revenue is “sort of a nonevent” and is not “really the very best approach to beat earnings.” 

He noted that Moderna is more enthusiastic about its lower-than-expected cost of sales, which he called considered one of the foremost explanation why the corporate’s earnings got here in above what some analysts were expecting. 

Cost of sales got here in at $929 million for the fourth quarter and $4.69 billion for the total 12 months. That features charges related to the corporate’s efforts to reduce manufacturing of its Covid shot and write-downs of unused doses of the vaccine. 

In November, Moderna said it had expected costs of sales to are available at $5 billion for the 12 months. 

“We began to see some fruits of productivity within the fourth quarter, and so that is what we’re blissful about,” Mock said, adding that the deferred revenue from Gavi is “just pure accounting.”

Still, the deferred revenue boosted Moderna’s full-year Covid vaccine sales to $6.7 billion, an amount the corporate first unveiled in January. It booked $18 billion in revenue in 2022 and expects sales from the shot to drop even further in 2024. 

Moderna reiterated its full-year 2024 sales guidance of roughly $4 billion. That forecast includes revenue from its vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which could win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in April. 

The corporate will proceed to cut back expenses in 2024, Mock noted, including a projected $4.5 billion in full-year research and development expenses, down from $4.8 billion in 2023. 

“We will increase our discipline as well,” he said. 

Moderna has said it expects to return to sales growth in 2025 and to interrupt even by 2026, with the launch of recent products. The corporate lost $4.7 billion for the total 12 months 2023, compared with a profit of $8.4
billion the 12 months prior.

Moderna currently has 45 products in development, nine of that are in late-stage trials. They include Moderna’s combination shot targeting Covid and the flu, which could win approval as early as 2025.

The pipeline also includes Moderna’s personalized cancer vaccine, a highly anticipated shot being developed with Merck to focus on different tumor types together with the blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda. 

Moderna will hold an earnings call with investors at 8:00 a.m. ET.