(Reuters) – Moderna reported quarterly sales on Thursday that beat Wall Street estimates but were well below a year ago when demand for COVID-19 vaccines was higher.
Sales of Moderna’s COVID-19 shot Spikevax, its only marketed product, fell 91% to $167 million in the quarter from a year earlier, but beat analysts’ expectations of $97.5 million.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company reiterated that it expects to receive regulatory approval for its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine in time for it to be included in the U.S. vaccination campaign in the fall.
Moderna shares were largely unchanged in premarket trading on Thursday.
The vaccine maker wants to enter a market for RSV vaccinations in which Pfizer and GSK are already fighting for market share. GSK’s Arexvy currently holds two-thirds of the market for new RSV vaccines.
Moderna also posted a smaller-than-expected loss of $3.07 per share. Analysts had expected a quarterly loss of $3.58 per share, according to LSEG data.
“We are encouraged by the performance, but recognize that it represents only a small percentage of our full year, with 90% of our revenue generated in the second half of the year,” said James Mock, Moderna’s chief financial officer.
Moderna reiterated its 2024 sales forecast of $4 billion, its lowest annual sales figure since the U.S. emergency authorization of its COVID vaccine in late 2020.
Analysts on average expect Moderna’s COVID shot to bring in $3.73 billion in 2024 and that its RSV vaccine will bring in $166.67 million. They estimate that the company will generate revenue of $4.18 billion in 2024.
First-quarter revenue included $100 million in sales in the U.S. and $67 million in the rest of the world, driven primarily by markets in Latin America, Mock said.
The company is relying on its experimental vaccinations, including against RSV, influenza and cancer, to offset falling COVID revenue.
Moderna said it plans to apply to regulators for approval of its flu vaccine later this year.
Cost of sales for the quarter totaled $96 million, including production dismantling costs of $27 million, it said.
The company said last September that it was in discussions with its partners who fill vials and syringes with its messenger RNA-based COVID vaccines around the world to reduce production.
“We’ve mostly completed that resizing, but we’ve built something that can reach $8 billion to $10 billion in revenue, so there will be some amount of unused capacity throughout the year,” Mock said.
(Reporting by Patrick Wingrove in New York, additional reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonali Paul)