Moderna Q4 Loss Narrower-Than-Expected, Sales Beat Estimates

Moderna MRNA incurred a loss of $2.11 per share in the fourth quarter of 2025, narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of $2.60. In the year-ago period, the company had reported a loss of $2.91.

Total revenues in the quarter were $678 million, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $659.5 million. Yet, this metric declined 30% year over year, owing to lower net product sales.

Year to date, Moderna’s stock has gained 26% compared with the industry’s 18% growth.

More on MRNA’s Earnings

Moderna currently has three marketed vaccines in its portfolio — the COVID-19 vaccines Spikevax and mNexspike, and the RSV vaccine mResvia.

Overall product sales were down 31% year over year to $645 million, owing to lower COVID vaccine sales volume compared to the prior-year period. Though the company did not disclose the individual breakdown of product sales, it stated that the majority of this figure was generated from the sales of COVID-19 vaccines.

Moderna generated $33 million from grants, collaborations, licensing and royalty revenues in the quarter, up 18% year over year. The company usually earns collaboration revenues from agreements with several big pharma/biotech companies, including Merck MRK and Vertex Pharmaceuticals VRTX.

Operating Costs Decline Amid Streamlining Efforts

Selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses were $308 million, down 12% year over year. This downside was primarily due to reductions in consulting and external services across multiple functions.

Research & development (R&D) expenses were down 31% to $775 million, reflecting continued investment prioritization and efficiency gains in executing the clinical development of its pipeline.

MRNA’s Full-Year 2025 Results

Moderna generated revenues of $1.94 billion for the full year, down 40% year over year.

The company incurred a loss of $7.26 per share during the year, narrower than the loss of $9.28 per share in the year-ago period.

Moderna’s 2026 Guidance

The company reiterated its total revenue guidance for the full year, which it issued last month.

Moderna expects total revenues to grow up to 10% over the 2025 levels. It expects the revenue split to be nearly equal between the domestic and international operations.

The company is targeting operating expenses of about $4.9 billion, including $3 billion in R&D and $1 billion in SG&A expenses.

Capital expenditure is expected to be in the range of $0.2-$0.3 billion.

The company expects to end 2026 with cash and cash equivalents between $5.5 billion and $6.0 billion.

MRNA’s Recent Pipeline Updates

Moderna is developing more than 30 mRNA-based investigational candidates across different stages of clinical studies, targeting various indications, including cancer.

Alongside the results, the company announced that it completed enrolment in the late-stage study evaluating its norovirus vaccine. It expects to report data from this study later this year.

Earlier this week, Moderna announced that the FDA refused to review its filing for the seasonal flu vaccine. Per the agency, the late-stage study supporting the filing was not adequate and well-controlled since the comparator vaccine was not the best available option. The company has requested a Type A meeting with the FDA to address the issues outlined in the refusal-to-file (RTF) letter and to establish the path forward.

An important candidate in Moderna’s pipeline is intismeran autogene, a personalized cancer therapy which is being developed in collaboration with Merck. The companies are evaluating this therapy in three pivotal phase III studies — one in the melanoma indication and the other two in the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) space. Data from the melanoma study is expected later this year.

Moderna and Merck are also evaluating intismeran in several mid-stage studies across multiple indications, including high-risk bladder cancers (both muscle-invasive and non-muscle-invasive), first-line metastatic melanoma, adjuvant renal cell carcinoma and first-line metastatic squamous NSCLC.

Moderna, Inc. Price

 

Moderna, Inc. price | Moderna, Inc. Quote

MRNA’s Zacks Rank

Moderna currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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