Moderna stock on track for 20% weekly gain after US bird flu death

Modern (mRNA:) was on track for a 21% weekly gain as of Wednesday.The vaccine maker’s shares rose 11.7% the previous day First bird flu death in the US.

Shares rose as much as 1% in premarket trading Wednesday.

Moderna was in July 2024 was awarded 176 million dollars by the US government to develop its mRNA H5N1 (bird flu) vaccine, which is in early testing.The award comes after an outbreak of the virus in cows infected three dairy workers, raising concerns about an outbreak in humans.

as of January there were 66 confirmed cases of H5N1 in the U.S. since 2024, the CDC said Monday.

“CDC has carefully reviewed the information available about the person who died in Louisiana and continues to assess that the risk to the public remains low,” the federal public health agency said people are at greater risk of infection.”

After Moderna’s development of a Covid-19 vaccine fueled massive revenue growth, with the vaccine maker up more than 2,000% in 2021 compared to the previous year. making his first profit — the company sputtered in a post-pandemic world. Moderna’s revenue fell 64% to just under $7 billion in 2023 (well below 2020 sales of $18.5 billion), and the company reported roughly 12 dollar loss per share.

Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg expect the company to report a loss of just over $9 per share for fiscal 2024, with sales to halve from the previous year.

Even with this week’s rally, Moderna’s shares are down nearly 60% from last year. More than half of analysts tracked by Yahoo Finance have a Hold rating on the stock, but the average sees the stock rising to $74 over the next 12 months. which implies a 56% gain from their current level.

Other companies developing an mRNA bird flu vaccine also jumped on the news of the bird flu death Novavax (NVAX:) rose nearly 11% on Tuesday.German biotech CureVac (CVAC:) increased by more than 4%.

CureVac is developing an avian flu mRNA vaccine in partnership with Indian pharma GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) (GLAXO.BO:) Pfizer (PFE:) posted a much more modest 0.9%, while GSK itself fell 1%.

Increase in cases of COVID-19 It also helped prop up vaccine manufacturers earlier this week, the CDC reported.

Laura Bratton is a Yahoo Finance reporter. Follow her at Bluesky @laurabratton.bsky.social. Email her at laura.bratton@yahooinc.com.

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