Moderna sold $5.9 billion of its COVID-19 vaccine in the first quarter, blowing revenue and profit expectations out of the water.
Moderna maintained its full-year guidance of $21 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales. That guidance is based on signed agreements with governments and does not include any orders from the U.S., so the final number could come in higher.
Moderna’s first-quarter vaccine sales more than tripled over the same period last year, when it reported $1.7 billion in sales shortly after the shots first rolled out. The COVID-19 vaccine for adults ages 18 and over, Spikevax, is the company’s only commercially available product.
CEO Stephane Bancel said Moderna expects stronger vaccine sales in the second half of the year as governments order more shots to get ready for fall inoculation campaigns. Bancel said Moderna also expects to receive regulatory approval in late summer for a redesigned vaccine that targets the mutations on the Omicron variant in addition to the original Wuhan variant.
“The virus is mutating to become more and more infectious, and there’s waning immunity,” Bancel told CNBC. “It is going to be really important to boost people in the fall with a better adapted vaccine which is what we’re working towards.”
Moderna reported $3.66 billion in net income for the quarter, a threefold increase over the $1.2 billion it reported in the same period last year.
