Moderna Chief Stéphane Bancel.
Getty Images
The good news in Moderna’s effort for the Covid-19 vaccine is not translating into good luck for the three billion behind the Massachusetts-based biotech company. The Moderna vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration panel on Thursday, and is likely to be approved for emergency use by the FDA later today – leaving it as the second approved vaccine by FDA for the virus that caused global pandemic. That should lead to billions in revenue in 2021. But Moderna shares have been falling. Since peaking on Dec. 8 at $ 169.86, Moderna stock has fallen 17% to $ 140.23 at the close of trading on Friday, Dec. 18.
The decline in Moderna’s share price has shaken $ 1.7 billion off the net worth of Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel and two early-stage investors in the company, Harvard professor Timothy Springer and Robert Langer at MIT, over the past 10 days gone.
The three men have made billions in 2020 thanks to Moderna’s dramatic rise, with the stock up more than 600% since the beginning of January. Bancel, 47, joined the company as CEO in 2011 – a year after its inception – and owns a 7% stake along with a large chunk of stock options, giving it an estimated net worth. of $ 4.5 billion. Springer and Langer were both founding investors in the company and have never sold a stake, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Springer has a 3.5% stake in Moderna, part of a $ 2.2 billion fortune (down from $ 2.6 billion on December 8); Langer owns 3%, part of its estimated net worth of $ 1.7 billion (down from $ 2 billion 10 days ago).
Analysts expect Moderna to invest $ 800 million in sales in 2020 thanks in part to government funding for its Covid-19 vaccine program, up from $ 60.2 million last year. That could make a balloon as much as $ 10 billion in revenue in 2021 when the vaccine is rolled out globally. Moderna shares are expected to remain volatile soon as investors have already received a price in the expected FDA approval and will now look at the company’s profits beyond the Covid-19 vaccine aca. “The agreement is a positive confirmation, but it was already widely expected,” said Michael Yee, an analyst at investment bank Jefferies.
It is part of a broader movement among pharmaceutical companies linked to the Covid-19 effort. Shares of German biotech clothing on the Nasdaq BioNTech list – which was in partnership with Pfizer on the successful Covid-19 vaccine already rolled out in the US and UK – have fallen 19% since December 8. That fall reduces the net worth of Uoundur cofounder BioNTech. Şahin and the company’s most prominent backers, billionth couple Andreas and Thomas Struengmann, have a collection of $ 3.8 billion.
With the Moderna vaccine slate released to the public in 2021, investors are expected to focus more on the company’s drug pipeline outside of Covid-19. That includes a number of drugs and vaccines that may be against the zika virus and the chikungunya virus, as well as vaccines that target tumors caused by cancers such as melanoma.
“What we’ve seen is that some are selling on the news when a Covid-19 pharmacist has been licensed,” said Hartaj Singh, an analyst at the Oppenheimer & Co. bankruptcy firm. “For the next year, people will be focusing on the recycling revenue that comes with the company, not just the one-time gain in 2021 from Covid-19’s pent-up demand.”