Moderna reports surprise profit, sets out road map for RSV vaccine

investing.com:

By Patrick Wingrove and Leroy Leo

(Reuters) -Moderna on Thursday reported a surprise fourth-quarter profit, helped by cost cutting and deferred payments, and set out a commercial roadmap for its vaccines in Europe and experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) shot.

Shares jumped 8% to $94.65 in early trading, still well off the record high of $497.49 hit during the peak of the COVID pandemic in 2021.

Waning demand for COVID vaccines and anticipation of a loss for 2023 led to a steep decline in Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA)'s shares last year.

Moderna posted a profit of $217 million, or 55 cents a share, for the quarter. Analysts had expected a loss of 97 cents a share, according to LSEG data.

Moderna Chief Financial Officer James Mock in an interview said the company beat its own forecast because of unexpected deferred revenue of $600 million from the international vaccine group Gavi.

The company also saved around $300 million from its effort last year to adjust its manufacturing output, he said.

«Our resizing was mostly completed at the end of the third quarter, but there is still plenty of work to do to drive additional productivity,» he said.

Lee Brown, healthcare lead at global research firm Third Bridge, said Moderna's resizing and other cost-saving efforts would allow the company to invest in further growth.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based drugmaker reported fourth quarter sales of $2.8 billion from its COVID vaccine, its only commercial product, down 43% from 2022 but in line with analysts' expectations.

Moderna on an investor call said it could not compete in the EU in the second half of last year because of a competitor contract, but was participating in the bloc's 2024 tender for up to 36 million doses of