Piper Boosts Moderna Target To $166 After 'Impressive' Vaccine Response
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Piper Sandler analyst Edward Tenthoff raised the firm's price target on Moderna (MRNA) to $166 from $136 and reiterates an Overweight rating on the shares after the company reported that mRNA-1273 showed 94.5% efficacy against COVID-19 on the first interim analysis of 95 cases.
The stock in premarket trading is up 14%, or $12.37, to $101.76. The "impressive" response demonstrates protection for the most vulnerable populations, including the elderly, and mRNA-1273 was well tolerated with the majority of adverse events being transient, Tenthoff tells investors in a research note.
The analyst sees the wider distribution of mRNA-1273 relative to Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech's (BNTX) BNT162b2, noting it remains stable at conventional refrigeration temperatures for 30 days and requires no dilution.
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Why didn’t $PFE get any boosts?
Probably because #Moderna's vaccine is more effective than #Pfizer's AND doesn't require specialized freezers to store the doses.
90 - 95 effectiveness is not statically nominal.
PFE says the vaccine 💉 is fine for weeks w sub freezing or dry ice (which is most inexpensive).
I've seen a lot of talk about the logistics of needing -70 storage and transport. Hadn't seen anything about dry ice working, which would be interesting as that is cheap and readily available. But many will just see this report and think "more effective + easier to store = better." Probably the most important question will be price. Which will be more expensive to produce/buy?
Another thing to consider is that Pfizer, the first to release a major announcement, already signed contracts with many countries for millions of vaccines. So though Moderna may be nominally better, what will it matter if the best contracts have already been signed with Pfizer? So you do have a point that Pfizer may be getting overlooked here.
Right! I think $PFE will be fine! FDA approval soon! The world will need all vaccines.
This is true. Especially since more than one dose per person will likely be required. Billions of doses will be needed, likely sourced from multiple companies.
Sounds much better than Pfizer? I suspect $PFE will drop now.
Don't be so sure, Alexa. It depends on how many sales they've already made. I know Israel just signed a deal for 8m doses to be delivered in January and they paid 200 nis (approximately $60) per dose. I'm sure Pfizer made many other similar deals and I suspect those sales are legally binding. If so, the countries will have to pay Pfizer no matter how many better options there are then.
I think the countries would be pretty foolish to not have an out should something more effective/safer/cheaper come to the market. But even if you are right, how many more sales will Pfizer get, now that we know there's something better out there. And if 2 companies already have this much success, there are likely many other companies that will follow suit shortly.
@[Alpha Stockman](user:4828), do you think we will reach a point where the market will become flooded with viable vaccines and the price will get commoditized? With the billions pharma dumped into R&D, could the companies actually LOSE money on the vaccine?
I think so, yes.
@[Anastasija Janevska](user:4910), maybe all the companies that follow suit, but Pfizer already has their sales booked at a high price. They will likely make billions. On Israel alone it sounds like they are set to make 1/2 a billion dollars. And that's only one of many companies.
Yeah, sounds like #Pfizer is now yesterday's news. No need for special storage needs AND more effective? You can't beat that.
Unless one of the other countless pharma companies working on a vaccine comes out with something better and cheaper tomorrow.