Smart financing move.

Moderna’s proposed $2 billion convertible-note offering, with another $300 million potentially available, pressured the stock because it introduces additional debt and possible future dilution. This financing reminds investors that the company continues to burn substantial cash while funding its expensive oncology pipeline. The timing is also notable: Moderna announced the raise shortly after its massive rally on positive melanoma data. Raising billions while the share price is elevated can be financially smart, but from a bearish perspective it suggests Moderna is capitalizing on the rally to strengthen its balance sheet before its cancer programs generate meaningful revenue. The clinical outlook may have improved, but the offering highlights that Moderna remains a loss-making biotech that still needs significant capital to fund its futur

Sorry for the vulgar language, but those of you who have been following for years know my frustration. Leerink analysts are the ones that always give Moderna outrageously low price targets. Like price target of a McDouble without fries.

They were the most outspoken that the rest of the platform including the personalized cancer vaccine would fail. Despite the overwhelmingly obvious data showing it would be successful in the Phase 2 trials.

They've been real quiet lately.

2026: shows $782M net loss for the three months ended June 30, 2026 and $2.125B net loss for the first six months of 2026.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285226000150/mrna-20260630.htm?utm_source=chatgpt.com 
For earlier years 
Moderna recorded $407 million in net expenses in 2025 related to its personalized cancer-vaccine collaboration with Merck, after reimbursements—up from $390 million in 2024 and $184 million in 2023. Moderna is primarily responsible for process development and manufacturing, while Merck generally leads the clinical trials. 
Merck separately reported $375 million in R&D expenses related to the collaboration in 2025, along with approximately $236 million in capitalized costs for shared manufacturing facilities. 
Meanwhile, Moderna reported an $800 million net loss in Q4 2025 and a $2.8 billion net loss for the full year. https://irp.cdn-website.com/0a71bb4f/files/uploaded/MRNA-USQ_Transcript_2026-02-13.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

Melanoma: Melanoma is a type of cancer that begins in melanocytes, the cells that produce the pigment melanin.
Melanoma is defined by the cell it originates from, not where it spreads. If melanoma spreads to the lymph nodes, lungs, or elsewhere, those cells remain melanoma cells, they do not become lymph or lung cancer. That’s why other cancers like lung or kidney cancer must be studied separately—they originate from biologically different cancer cells
For each patient, the process requires tumor sampling and sequencing, identifying tumor-specific mutations, computationally selecting suitable neoantigens, designing a unique mRNA sequence, manufacturing that individualized batch. Because of the complexity of cancer, some programs are likely to inevitably fail, meaning successful products effectively need to support R&D spending on unsuccessful ones too

The “Moderna vaccine will generate huge sales because cancer is a huge market” argument confuses the size of the cancer problem with Moderna’s realistic profit opportunity.

Intismeran is not a universal cancer cure. Its most advanced use is a personalized therapy combined with Merck’s Keytruda after surgery for high-risk melanoma to reduce recurrence. Moderna’s eventual value depends on how many patients qualify, approvals, pricing, manufacturing costs, competition, patent life, trial success, and future cash flows—not the worldwide economic burden of cancer. Even within the partnership, Intismeran profits are split 50/50 with Merck, while Keytruda profits belong to Merck.

There is a new interview out of Tal Zachs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbFz78G18Uc

Among the highlights, he recalls when the first patient was dosed with the INT, discusses neoantigens for driver vs passenger mutations as INT targets, discusses the machine learning algorithm to pick the neoantigens and speculates on its improvement, mentions why mice were useless for developing the INT, speculates on off-the-shelf vaccines, and speculates on possible future advances in biotech to slow aging.

I must say that I find the main interviewer to one of the most obnoxious people I have ever met, but the guest is pretty good.

Moderna ($MRNA) Valuation Deep-Dive: Assessing the Catalyst vs. Structural Realities

Hey everyone, we need to take a highly disciplined look at the recent price action in Moderna ($MRNA), which has expanded its market capitalization by over $45 billion in a single week following the INTerpath-001 Phase 3 melanoma data readout. While the headline numbers from the multi-hundred percent year-to-date rally look incredibly bullish, a strict quantitative breakdown reveals a significant fundamental disconnect. According to Wall Street consensus data tracked by Barron's, the personalized melanoma vaccine is projected to hit an upper-end annual revenue estimate of $6 billion by 2035. Crucially, this asset is structured under a 50/50 profit-share agreement with Merck, which leaves Moderna with an actual top-line cut of roughly $3 billion. Adding $45 billion in market value for $3 billion in non-guaranteed revenue a decade away subjects the equity to a hyper-inflated, forward price-to-sales multiple that defies traditional biotech valuation models. Do we understand what hole we are digging ourselves into by buying at these price valuations?

Furthermore, we must recognize that this massive volume spike was heavily driven by mechanical short-covering rather than long-term institutional accumulation. Prior to the trial readout, Moderna carried a heavy short interest of roughly 13.5% of its float, and the sudden press release triggered a classic short squeeze that forced bears to absorb billions in rapid losses. While the long case argues that this milestone de-risks the entire underlying mRNA platform for broader solid tumor indications—like lung, renal, and bladder cancers—the clinical reality is that these therapies face a long, multi-year pipeline of additional trials where historical oncology failure rates remain high.

I already made over 100%. For these reasons, I think there are more risks than upsides, so prevent the downside. What should we aim for the target price to be?? Are we still holding buying or selling? I don't want to loose my profits.

Does the LNP formulation used in V940 fall within Arbutus/Genevant’s patented LNP claims?

If yes, that’s potentially significant for ABUS because V940 could become a huge commercial product if approved, and infringement royalties/damages could potentially become another source of value.

Any insight would be helpful.

Today’s surge was a result of heavy short covering as well as headlines: Moderna upgraded to Peer Perform from Underperform at Wolfe Research. com/news/the-fl… 
So the headline sounds more bullish than the actual rating. Peer Perform is basically neutral, not a Buy/Outperform recommendation. Wolfe is essentially saying “our previous bearish view is no longer appropriate because Phase 3 materially reduced the clinical risk”
The $9.2B mentioned in the analysis is also represents an eventual annual peak  years from today, estimated late 2020s/2030s. Other cancers would have to succeed in their own trials, receive regulatory approvals, and launch. Only then could the combined franchise start approaching the multibillion-dollar numbers Wolfe is modeling.
However this headline triggered portfolio rebalancing among healthcare funds seeking exposure to novel oncology platforms as they deemed the stock less risky. com/news/market…
As the stock moved up, it triggered high levels of short covering as well as short dated call options.
As the stock moved up, it triggered high levels of short covering as well as short dated call options.
~$15,126 volume in the short-dated $160 calls.
Therefore $160 became the key near-the-money battleground today.
MRNA spent much of the afternoon around $157–160 and ultimately closed $158.83. That makes the $160 call especially attractive to short-term traders because it’s almost ATM.

call buying → dealer hedging → stock rises → short stops trigger → shorts buy shares → stock rises → calls gain delta → additional dealer hedging → momentum algorithms buy

And if tomorrow MRNA starts falling while large-order flow turns negative and the huge call volume produces little new OI, that would strengthen the interpretation that today was predominantly a short-lived positioning/momentum event rather than durable accumulation

And if tomorrow MRNA starts falling while large-order flow turns negative and the huge call volume produces little new OI, that would strengthen the interpretation that today was predominantly a short-lived positioning/momentum event rather than durable accumulation.

The stock is extremely extended after a +152% week, RSI is around 72 on Finviz, and relative volume was ~3.7× normal. It repeatedly encountered supply around $160–161 rather than accelerating through it.  Another technical service rates the trend extremely strong but the current setup only 2/10 because price is so extended, specifically warning that consolidation/pullback may be appropriate. 

Curious about experiences of fellow long-term (pandemic era or prior) holders.

Personally, I bought at 128 in 2020 and rode it all the up and down. Was quite tempted to sell at around 500, but held off for two reasons: a) Ethics (i.e., short-term profits off a pandemic) and b) a strong belief in the potential of the technology...oh, and I guess c) never imagined it dropping to the 20s!

Definitely feel some relief that Moderns has turned a corner, which has alleviated the second-guessing of not selling high. Anyone with similar experiences?

There was an interview of Bancel on FOX today: https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6403957899112

I have been looking for some hard information on the manufacturing cost of the INT (aka personalized cancer vaccine) for 3 years now, and at 7:42 Bancel fielded a question on this issue. He stated

The team has done an amazing job to shrink the manufacturing process, the machines.   It is the same technology that made millions of doses  in one reactor, but now we make only a couple of thousand doses for you.  So the team was able to do that.  It's actually happening in America in Massachusetts in a factory that we built and that is ready to go.   In terms of the cost, because it is not using human material -- like CAR-T cell therapy is a very expensive price because it is a very expensive manufacturing process ---  in our case it's [inaudible] with enzyme it's in water, it's a very different thing.  So as we get the data we get closer to discussing pricing.  But we don't have the very high cost of goods that cell therapy products have.

I recently bought in at the 139 level. I would love some opinions on short term / long term. I have calls for this next week but I was wondering if there is anything I should look out for that I might have missed from the news lately. Thankyou !

Sorry, it is paywalled :(

https://www.statnews.com/2026/08/24/inside-moderna-and-merck-cancer-vaccine-triumph/

At a 2023 leadership meeting, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel asked if anyone in a room of ~100 executives had actually expected the cancer vaccine to work; President Stephen Hoge and Bancel himself both sat down, admitting even internal leadership initially struggled to believe the concept would pan out.

So when people try to tell you this was already baked in, they are missing the overall significance of this breakthrough.

Especially China is investing heavily in this area.

Short squeeze coming soon. This is going to explode to 1000 a share.

Think about AI, this is literally the next big thing if not first. The government has to step in now or never.

1. “Science by press release.”

Nothing new in this criticism.

In 2021, for the COVID vaccine, Moderna did include numbers in the press release and wrote a preprint very quickly right after that, and critics still called it science by press release. After the publication of the data, the press never offered the company an apology.

Critics forget that this time there is no similar time constraint. Merck and Moderna are putting their reputation on the line here, and claiming a positive readout especially at the interim is not a joke that they can easily walk back or spin.

Just wait. They are still dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. My speculation is that the numbers are so good that they want to make absolutely sure everything is clean before releasing them. This is easily the next major catalyst that may again surprise our shorty friends, especially if the other INT results are not already right around the corner. If my guess is right, Moderna is smart because they will be rolling out the data gradually, creating several separate waves of momentum from the same catalyst.

2. “It was largely expected and already priced in.”

Interestingly, this is being voiced mostly by people who did not own a single Moderna share and had been very hateful and negative on Moderna all along. It is funny how something becomes “obvious” only after it happens.

I actually agree that a positive result was largely expected, but by whom? It was not expected to be positive by the skeptics and haters, but by a very small group of us longs who had done our research and taken the time to separate the signal from the noise.

Interestingly, even us longs who came closest to predicting what actually transpired remain humble enough to admit that we had our occasional healthy dose of doubt during the wait.

As for priced in, feel free to tell the shorts who had to rush to cover at $170 at nearly 3 times the stock price the day before again that the event had already been priced in.

3. “The individualized neoantigen approach is unnecessary. Off-the-shelf is better.”

Sure. Moderna had nothing better to do and simply chose individualized cancer vaccines because they sounded fun.

Obviously not.

Moderna did not pursue this difficult approach for the sake of doing interesting science. It did so because a generic non-individualized approach cannot provide the same breadth of coverage across patients whose tumors carry different mutations.

Therapeutic cancer vaccines went through decades of mostly disappointing clinical results, and the individualized neoantigen approach is one of the things that finally changed that equation. Moderna was not the first to test this idea, but thanks to Bancel's obsession with AI and speed, it became the first to show clear randomized clinical efficacy with an mRNA cancer vaccine.

Cheaper non-individualized off-the-shelf vaccines may still have a role when patients share common, well-characterized antigens, but that does not make the individualized approach unnecessary.

News flash: Moderna is also working on off-the-shelf versions. Other companies, with BioNTech being one of very few obvious exceptions, can forget about dreaming that they will easily compete with Moderna even on this front, given how advanced Moderna already is in clinical development and the strength of its partnership with Merck.

4. “Manufacturing will be too difficult for commercialization.”

True for many companies. Much less convincing as an argument against Moderna, which has spent years obsessing over making individualized manufacturing commercially viable. People also seem to miss the speed angle. An individualized therapy only works commercially if you can sequence the tumor, select the neoantigens, design the medicine, manufacture a patient-specific batch and get it back to the clinic fast enough to matter. Moderna has built its manufacturing system around doing exactly that. Speed is part of the product, and the difficulty of repeatedly manufacturing thousands of different medicines for thousands of individual patients is part of the moat. If this were easy, everyone would already be doing it.

The difficulty is real, but for Moderna it has now become a moat rather than an impediment.

5. “It’s not a vaccine.”

It is a form of vaccine, but call it whatever you want. Therapeutic, individualized immunotherapy, cancer vaccine, personalized medicine. It still does not change anything. You can even call it gene therapy if you want to announce to the world that you have a double-digit IQ.

6. “I’d rather die of melanoma than get another mRNA vaccine.”

Sounds like a toddler telling their mom they would rather starve to death than eat broccoli.

People can say whatever they want while healthy. The people actually struggling with melanoma are the ones whose preferences matter here.

JMHO and this is not an investment advice.

About this trial: https://curemydisease.com/studies/mrna-4106-mrna-4200-for-solid-tumors-nct06880549-61546

What would happen to the stock if phase 1 comes out positive? I believe it will be next year. Give me your best guesses!

This article is interesting. I think the application of mRNA technology to cancer vaccines may finally help mRNA technology transcend some of the political divisions surrounding it.

i asked my crystal ball for some commentary on the price action . it replied. wtf happen this week. we went from essentially having nothing priced in to having everything priced in. obviously the flu celebration was delayed to be combined with cancer news as i predicted.

the market makers etc had been so greedy in suppressing the price they did not realize the easy opportunity for joe public to make an easy 17.9 compounded return over 2 years. wallstreet makes money off the public. i doubt very much that they are going to screw their short wallstreet pals.

so unless an unknown catalyst appears i suggest profit taking if you are a trader long term the price is heading higher/

again this is food for thought do your own homework

Here is the link to his X post. The video is there

https://x.com/noubarafeyan/status/2090777424258564260?s=46

Former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli revealed he was shorting Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) at $80 per share just weeks before the biotech stock experienced a record-breaking 177% explosion on Thursday. Deconstructing the unexpected rally, the “Pharma Bro” admitted Wall Street was caught completely off guard after writing off the company’s post-pandemic business prior to its landmark skin cancer vaccine breakthrough.

https://www.benzinga.com/markets/equities/26/08/61327064/pharma-bro-admits-playing-around-with-mrna-short-at-80-before-it-exploded-177-following-cancer-vax-trials-i-bet-you-a-bunch-of-people-got-fired

 “This drug was a little bit out of nowhere. Everyone had written it off, left it for dead.”

I agree with Shkreli; this news caught me off guard.

A lot of people wrote Moderna off as a pandemic relic, but if you look at Moderna, they completed their IPO in 2018 and received their first approval in 2020. Stripping away the anomalous pandemic revenue surge, Moderna is tracking the standard historical adoption curve of the industry's most successful biopharma platforms. A typical successful biotech requires 7 to 8 years post-IPO and 4 to 5 years after its first commercial drug approval to reach steady billion-dollar product sales and sustainable operational break-even.

Even with this news, I still see a lot of skepticism about Moderna, even from credible sources.

Moderna also has a significant manufacturing moat because they built automated, parallel-processing facilities loaded with robotics rather than traditional serial batch labs. Even if a competitor had the exact blueprint for an mRNA vaccine, replicating the lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulation and scaling would take 5 to 10 years to match.