Key Takeaways
- Moderna stock jumped 13% on Wednesday to a new 52-week high on early multiple myeloma data and an Ebola vaccine recommendation, then gave back 5% on Thursday ahead of Friday’s report.
- Pfizer’s Comirnaty sales fell 29% operationally in the third quarter, and BioNTech’s revenue fell 15%. That’s a warning for Moderna’s fall season.
- Moderna’s cost cuts have shrunk its cash burn, and it guides to $4.7 billion to $5.2 billion of cash and investments at year-end to fund a cancer pipeline it partly shares with Merck.
- Even after Thursday’s drop, the stock trades near its highest forward sales multiple in five years, so the science matters far more than the quarter.
Moderna (MRNA) stock jumped 13% on Wednesday, Nov. 4, to close at $258.38, a new 52-week high. Two pieces of news drove it. Early data for mRNA-2808, Moderna’s three-in-one multiple myeloma therapy, showed four confirmed responses among 11 evaluable, heavily pretreated patients. A World Health Organization advisory group also recommended moving its Ebola vaccine candidate into a Phase 2/3 efficacy study. The stock had already risen 3% on Tuesday. On Thursday, Nov. 5, it’s down 5% at about $245.
mRNA-2808 is still in Phase 1/2, and the money to develop it has to come from a vaccine business that’s a fraction of its pandemic size. Moderna reports third-quarter results before the open on Friday. Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX), partners on the rival COVID shot Comirnaty, both reported on Nov. 3. Merck (MRK), which co-develops the cancer therapy intismeran with Moderna, reported on Oct. 29.
The Fall Season Has to Carry Moderna’s Year
Moderna brought in $389 million of revenue in the first quarter and $145 million in the second. It’s targeting up to 10% growth on 2025’s $1.94 billion, and the analysts’ $2.10 billion sits near the top of that range:
That leaves about $1.6 billion for the second half. Moderna expects about 55% of its second-half revenue in the third quarter, so that’s roughly $860 million for the quarter it reports Friday. That’s below last year’s third quarter of about $1.0 billion.
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Pfizer and BioNTech Set a Low Bar
Pfizer’s quarter makes even that bar look hard to clear. Comirnaty sales fell 29% operationally, partly because narrower U.S. vaccine recommendations cut use. Pfizer barely felt it: revenue outside Comirnaty and Paxlovid grew 7%operationally, and it raised its 2026 revenue guidance to $62 billion to $64 billion.
BioNTech’s revenue fell 15% to €1.29 billion, while R&D spending rose 32% to €748 million, including write-downs on programs it no longer prioritizes.
Moderna Is Priced on the Pipeline
That revenue line doesn’t explain the stock’s price. Moderna traded at 46x forward sales on Monday, Nov. 2, before this week’s rally. Its five-year average is 7.9x:
Wednesday’s close pushed that to about 54x, above the 51.5x five-year peak from Oct. 21. Even after Thursday’s drop, it’s about 51x. Investors are paying for the cancer pipeline, so Friday’s real question is whether Moderna has the cash to fund it.
Moderna has been cutting hard to pay for it. Second-quarter R&D spending fell 7% to $651 million as it wound down several late-stage programs, and selling, general and administrative costs fell 6% to $216 million. In July, it trimmed its 2026 R&D guidance to about $2.9 billion. The cuts show up in the cash burn:
Moderna burned about $1.3 billion of free cash flow in the first half of 2026, against about $2.1 billion a year earlier. Free cash flow turned positive in the fourth quarter of both years, when fall vaccine payments come in.
Friday’s quarter includes the $950 million litigation settlement Moderna paid in July, so take it out to compare with last year’s $880 million burn. Moderna’s guidance already counts the payment, with cash and investments falling from $6.9 billion at June 30 to $4.7 billion to $5.2 billion at year-end. It raised that range by about $200 million in July. Excluding the settlement, that implies a second-half burn of less than $1.3 billion.
Merck Is Waiting on the Same Answer
Merck and Moderna share intismeran’s costs and profits equally. At ESMO in October, the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 resultsshowed it cut the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 42% when added to Keytruda. That fell short of what investors had hoped for, and both stocks fell that day, Moderna by 17.6%.
For Merck, intismeran is one of the bets meant to carry its cancer business past Keytruda. Keytruda brought in $8.6 billion with Keytruda Qlex in the third quarter, and it loses its U.S. compound patent in December 2028. With three Phase 3 lung cancer trials running, Merck holders will want to hear what Moderna says Friday about filing timelines and launch spending.
Moderna Can Pay for the Pipeline, for Now
On its own plan, Moderna can afford the pipeline, and the cost cuts are doing more of that work than the vaccines are. If Friday’s cash is on track and management keeps the year-end range, Moderna can keep funding the work without raising money. The risk is the fall season. If Spikevax falls as hard as Comirnaty did, Moderna might have to draw on its remaining $900 million credit line or sell stock.
At about 51x forward sales, the stock needs the science to work, and a quarter on plan probably won’t move it much next to the myeloma data. The next look at that data comes at the American Society of Hematology meeting in December.
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