Moderna Stock Falls as Citi Says $200 Needs $26B in Cancer Sales

Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA) shares fell 8.57% to $186.03 in Wednesday premarket trading after Citi downgraded the stock. The firm moved Moderna from Neutral to Sell, saying a share price around $200 would imply roughly $26 billion in annual oncology sales.

The decline followed a 3.13% gain Tuesday, when Moderna closed at $203.46 after reaching a new 52-week high of $208.90. At $187.76, the premarket price was about 10.1% below Tuesday’s intraday high.

Meanwhile, Moderna Tokenized bStock (MRNAB) was trading at $187.79, down 3.91% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. Because MRNAB trades around the clock, its 24-hour percentage change covers a different period from Moderna’s Nasdaq premarket move.

Citi Says $200 Price Would Require $26 Billion in Cancer Sales

Citi raised its Moderna price target to $80 from $60 despite cutting its rating. Analyst Geoff Meacham said the stock’s valuation assumes substantially more oncology success than Citi currently forecasts.

The bank estimated that supporting a share price of about $200 would require approximately $26 billion in annual cancer sales, with about $13 billion accruing to Moderna. That figure is nearly seven times Citi’s own oncology-sales forecast.

Citi also said its 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 said investors still need to see a strong treatment effect, clear clinical benefit and consistency across patient groups when detailed Phase 3 melanoma results are released.

Moderna and Merck announced Aug. 19 that their Phase 3 INTerpath-001 study of intismeran autogene plus Keytruda met its primary recurrence-free-survival endpoint and the key secondary endpoint of distant-metastasis-free survival in patients with completely resected Stage IIB-IV melanoma. The companies said the improvements were statistically significant and clinically meaningful but did not disclose the numerical treatment effects with the topline results.

Phase 3 INTerpath-001 data are scheduled for presentation at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress on Oct. 24 in Madrid.

Moderna Adds COO as It Prepares for Potential Intismeran Scale-Up

Separately, Moderna announced Wednesday that it had added a chief operating officer role and named Juan Andres to the position, effective Oct. 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, join Moderna’s executive committee, and lead the company’s manufacturing organization while working across the business on execution and prioritization.