Moderna’s CEO said the company’s experimental melanoma vaccine could be available by 2025. The company’s shares reacted with rapid growth
Shares of biotech company Moderna rose 20.78% to $94.93 on the NASDAQ stock exchange as of 5:43 p.m. Moscow time. Demand for the stock surged amid Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel’s announcement that the company’s experimental melanoma vaccine could become available in just two years. According to the CEO, Moderna expects the product could be launched on an accelerated basis in some countries by 2025, Barron’s writes. According to the publication, in 2020, 325 thousand new cases of melanoma and 57 thousand deaths from this disease were registered worldwide. Unlike conventional vaccines, so-called therapeutic vaccines treat rather than prevent disease.
Clinical trial results showed improved chances of survival over time with the vaccine, which uses the same messenger RNA technology that has been shown to be highly effective against severe forms of COVID-19. Creating a cancer vaccine involves analyzing the genetic sequence of each patient’s tumor to create personalized therapy after surgery. The study involved 157 people diagnosed with stage III–IV melanoma. Moderna’s experimental vaccine combined with Merck’s immunotherapy drug Keytruda reduced the risk of relapse or death by 49% over three years compared with Keytruda alone.
Last year, Moderna announced the results of two years of monitoring, which showed a 44% reduction in risk. Thus, existing clinical data could form the basis for conditional approval of the vaccine, Bancel said. Modern’s shares have fallen by about 48% since the beginning of the year. At the end of the third quarter of 2023, the biotechnology company reported a net loss of $3.6 billion. The company attributed the loss mainly to one-time write-offs associated with reduced capacity to produce COVID-19 vaccines. The company’s revenue decreased by 1.8 times – to $1.831 billion. The company announced that it plans to reach breakeven in 2026.
