Moderna Stock Is Falling After Earnings. What Has Wall Street Worried.

Moderna announced plans to cut 10% of its staff Thursday. ((Carl Court/Getty Images))

Moderna executives still think the company can stop losing money by 2028, but second-quarter results disclosed early Friday show the biotech will need to keep making deeper cuts to get there.

Moderna shares were down 6.3% early Friday after the company pulled down its revenue guidance for the year. Moderna now expects 2025 revenue of between $1.5 billion and $2.2 billion, cutting the top end of its guidance from an earlier $2.5 billion.

The company is cutting costs quicker than expected, and still expects to have a cash balance at the end of the year of $6 billion. It now says GAAP operating expenses will be $400 million lower than prior estimates, at $5.9 billion to $6.1 billion.

But the report highlights how vulnerable the company is, given the weakness of demand for its Covid-19 shots, and how it will need to keep slashing costs. The results do nothing to clear the looming worries that Moderna won’t stop losing money before it runs out of cash.

Shares of the biotech were down 28.9% this year as of the close of trading Thursday to $29.56. At its peak in August 2021, the stock had been trading at more than $480. The company had nearly $20 billion in cash as of early 2022, but it has been losing billions of dollars a year since 2023, when the market for its Covid-19 vaccine began to shrink dramatically.

On Friday, the company reported second-quarter revenue of $142 million, slightly better than the $113 million FactSet consensus estimate. Sales of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine, Spikevax, were $114 million, while sales of its respiratory syncytial virus vaccine mRESVIA were “negligible.”

The company reported GAAP net loss of $0.8 billion in the quarter and a loss of $2.13 per share. Analysts had expected a net loss of $1.1 billion and $2.96 per share.

Moderna attributed the lowered revenue guidance to a change in the delivery schedule for Covid-19 shots as part of a contract with the U.K. government.

The earnings beat wasn’t the focus for investors on Friday. Moderna’s problem is that it’s burned mountains of cash on developing a big pipeline of new drugs, and sales of its current vaccines have been anemic. That’s created a cash crunch that investors worry could force it to raise money in a way that dilutes existing shareholders.

On the investor call Friday morning, executives said the company would keep cutting spending.

“We remain committed to breaking even on a cash cost basis in 2028, and will adjust spending as necessary,” the company’s chief financial officer, Jamey Mock, said on the call.

The quarterly report came a day after Moderna announced plans to cut 10% of its staff. The staff reductions will bring its head count below 5,000 employees by the end of the year, down from 5,800 at the start of the year.

“These actions are necessary to reshape our capabilities and align to our long-term operating cost structure,” Mock said.

The company has a tough road ahead. It estimates cash costs of $4.7 billion in 2026, and $4.2 billion in 2027. But analysts only expect $2.4 billion of revenue in 2026, and $2.9 billion of revenue in 2027.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com and Elsa Ohlen at elsa.ohlen@barrons.com