Key Takeaways
- Moderna jumped 9% after Piper Sandler raised its price target to $305 from $230, following Friday’s third-quarter beat.
- Piper’s target bets on the melanoma vaccine Moderna is developing with Merck, a win investors already pay a lot for.
- Moderna grew on its own government deals overseas, while BioNTech and Pfizer sold less of their shared COVID vaccine.
- Goldman Sachs stayed Neutral with a $195 target, and kidney cancer data is next to watch.
Moderna (MRNA) is up another 9% today after Piper Sandler raised its price target to $305 from $230 and kept its Overweight rating, following Friday’s third-quarter beat and raised 2026 revenue outlook.
The beat came on more COVID vaccine sales overseas, while BioNTech (BNTX) and its partner Pfizer (PFE) sold less of theirs. Piper’s bigger bet, though, is intismeran, the melanoma vaccine Moderna is developing with Merck (MRK).
Moderna sold more COVID shots abroad
Third-quarter revenue rose 29% to $1.3 billion, mainly on long-term government partnerships. Moderna now expects 2026 revenue to grow 15% to 25%, up from as much as 10%.
BioNTech’s third-quarter revenue fell 15% to €1.29 billion. Pfizer’s Comirnaty sales fell 29% operationally. So Moderna’s government deals look like the steadier business.
Still, analysts see only a slow climb back from Moderna’s COVID peak.
Even the $3.57 billion consensus for 2028 is about half of Moderna’s fiscal 2023 revenue.
TIKR tracks 23 analysts on Moderna. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Moderna, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Moderna’s Analyst Ratings
Piper is paying for the cancer vaccine
Piper expects a blockbuster melanoma approval in 2027, and sees the vaccine working alongside Merck’s Keytruda in other cancers too. Merck CEO Robert Davis called the Phase 3 melanoma results “the first Phase 3 validation of a therapeutic cancer vaccine.” But Keytruda sold $8.6 billion in the third quarter alone, so Moderna has far more riding on that approval than Merck does.
Goldman Sachs raised its target to $195 from $137 but kept a Neutral rating. That target is 23% below Friday’s close. And Moderna trades far above its usual forward sales multiple.
At Friday’s close, Moderna traded at 49x forward sales, six times its five-year average, and today’s jump takes it even higher.
Piper’s $305 is also more than double the Street’s average target, which is still below the stock price.
I’m with Goldman on this one. The COVID deals give Moderna time and cash, but at nearly 50x forward sales, investors are already paying for the blockbuster Piper expects. Of course, if the kidney cancer data Goldman flagged comes in strong, $305 starts to look a lot more reasonable.
So what is Moderna stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
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