Moderna cuts 2025 sales forecast by $1 billion

modern On Monday, the biotech cut its 2025 sales guidance by about $1 billion amid some potential headwinds later this year as it continues to cut costs and expand its product portfolio.

Moderna currently expects revenue in 2025 to be between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, with the majority of that coming in the second half of the year. The majority of those sales will come from Moderna's Covid vaccine and the newly launched respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, according to a press release.

The guidance is down from a forecast range of $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion issued in September. At the time, the company said it expected to break even on an operating cash basis with revenue of $6 billion by 2028 (pushed back from 2026).

Moderna shares closed down nearly 17% on Monday. Other vaccine stocks also fell, with Novavax and BioNTech both down more than 7%.

“As we move into 2025, we are planning for some uncertainties,” Moderna Chief Financial Officer Jamey Mock told CNBC. “As of now, we plan to treat them as headwinds. They could be tailwinds, but now we see them as headwinds.”

Mock pointed to four factors that could impact sales, including increased competition in the coronavirus market. He said Moderna's share of the U.S. retail COVID-19 vaccine market fell from 48% in 2023 to 40% at the end of 2024, and the company was preparing for another decline this year.

He pointed out Sanofi will co-commercialize NovavaxThe vaccine will be available globally under a new deal that could make it more competitive.

Mock said the second factor is a decline in vaccination rates, which overall will be down about 7% in the U.S. retail market in the fall of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023. The final two factors are the timing of manufacturing contracts with a small number of countries and the uncertainty that consultants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will recommend RSV revaccination.

But Mock noted that the company expects cash cost expenses to decrease by $1 billion in 2025, and plans to further reduce it by $500 million in 2026.

“We're taking appropriate costs to preserve our cash,” Mock said. “We are excited to invest and diversify our portfolio.”

The news comes as Moderna charts a path forward after rapidly declining demand for its Covid vaccine, which was the company's only commercial product until its RSV vaccine hit the market last year. It also precedes Moderna's presentation at the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, one of the world's largest gatherings of healthcare executives and a hotbed of deal activity in the industry.

Moderna's revenue from the two-shot shot met its 2024 forecast of about $3 billion to $3.1 billion. In November, the company said its updated Covid vaccine was approved in the U.S. three weeks earlier than its predecessor in 2023.

Still, those sales are down sharply from the $6.7 billion Moderna's Covid vaccine will generate in bookings in 2023 and the $18 billion it will generate in 2022, as fewer people roll up their sleeves to prepare for an updated shot.

Moderna plans to bolster its portfolio with 10 new product approvals over the next three years, including a combination vaccine against COVID-19 and influenza and a “next-generation” COVID-19 vaccine. The company said on Monday that three approvals were possible in 2025 alone.

The company is betting on a pipeline built around its messenger RNA platform, the technology used in its Covid vaccine and RSV vaccine.