Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA) shares declined 8.57% to $186.03 in Wednesday premarket trading following a Citigroup downgrade. The firm moved Moderna from Neutral to Sell, despite raising its price target to $80 from $60.
Analyst Geoff Meacham said the stock's valuation assumes substantially more oncology success than Citi currently forecasts. The bank estimated that a share price of approximately $200 would require roughly $26 billion in annual cancer sales, with about $13 billion accruing to Moderna—nearly seven times Citi's own oncology-sales forecast.
Citi's net-present-value analysis supports a valuation of only about $100 per share even if it assigns a 100% probability of success to intismeran's leading cancer programs, Meacham noted.
Pending Clinical Data
Moderna and Merck announced in August that their Phase 3 INTerpath-001 study of intismeran autogene plus Keytruda met its primary endpoint for recurrence-free survival and a key secondary endpoint of distant-metastasis-free survival in patients with completely resected Stage IIB-IV melanoma. The companies described the improvements as statistically significant and clinically meaningful but did not disclose numerical treatment effects.
Meacham said investors need to see a strong treatment effect, clear clinical benefit, and consistency across patient groups when detailed Phase 3 melanoma results are presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress on October 24 in Madrid.
Leadership and Operations
Moderna announced Wednesday that it has added a chief operating officer role and named Juan Andres to the position, effective October 5. The company said the new role comes as it prepares for the potential launch and scale-up of intismeran following the positive Phase 3 results and continues to expand its oncology portfolio. Andres will report to Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel and lead the company's manufacturing organization.
