By: Philip MacKellar
Published: Aug 25, 2025
What stocks defined the COVID era? Though there are many contenders, including Peloton PTON-Q, Zoom ZM-Q, Etsy ETSY-Q (written about here), and more, for me, Moderna MRNA-Q stands out. It symbolizes how the pandemic gave rise to revolutionary health-care solutions, created new stock market darlings and turned unknown companies into widely recognized ones.
Before the pandemic, Moderna was a small, obscure outfit. In 2019, it was dependent on government agencies, non-profits, and corporate partners for funding. Its annual revenues were US$60-million, and the net loss rang in at US$514-million. The company was focused on applying its mRNA technology to address various infectious diseases, cancers, cardiovascular treatments, rare disorders and autoimmune diseases. Analyst coverage was low, few investors outside of the biotech space knew about the organization, and the thought of Moderna becoming a household name was outlandish.
All of this changed during the pandemic. Suddenly, Moderna’s mRNA technology was seen as one possible answer to COVID-19. The company received billions in funding under the first Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed, which was unveiled in the spring of 2020. Warp Speed hoped to accelerate the development, manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tests through billions in funding and collaboration between the public and private sectors.
By late 2020, Moderna, along with fellow mRNA vaccine maker Pfizer-BioNTech, had produced effective vaccines, which vindicated Operation Warp Speed. In December, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave both companies “emergency use authorization.” In the quarters and years that followed, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech shots were mass-manufactured and administered in countries around the world.
In 2021 and 2022, Moderna’s business boomed and the shares soared. The stock rallied 2,442.1 per cent, from a price of US$19.57 on Jan. 1, 2020, to an all-time high of US$497.49 in August, 2021. The income statement flourished as well. In 2021, net profit peaked at US$12.2-billion, and in 2022 sales soared at US$19.2-billion – a far cry from 2019’s US$60-million in revenue and a massive net loss.
The story has been more or less downhill from there, however. Today, the ticker is trading roughly where it was prior to the pandemic. The top line has contracted to US$3.12-billion in 2024, and the company is once again losing money – lots of money. In the latest quarter, for example, the top line was US$142-million, and the bottom line was negative US$825-million.
The company is attempting a turnaround. The first part of this turnaround depends on growing the top line via new mRNA vaccines. New COVID shots have recently been approved, along with an RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine. By 2028, the C-suite hopes vaccines for flu, norovirus, various rare diseases, and certain cancers – including skin and bladder – will be approved.
In order for the company to survive long enough to see these vaccines to fruition, the turnaround is also focused on cutting costs and conserving cash. The company plans to reduce 2025 capex from US$400-million to US$300-million, cut R&D spending, and slash SG&A (sales, general and administrative) costs.
To achieve this, Moderna will cut roughly 10 per cent of its work force this year, streamline its manufacturing base, and revamp its procurement procedures. The company is embracing AI in a bid to further cut expenses and drive innovation. The executive team hopes total operating expenditureswill be US$4.85-billion in 2027, versus US$6-billion this year, and a whopping US$11.1-billion in 2023.
The corporate road map through 2028 is encouraging. Moreover, the stock could easily spike again if – or more likely, when – another highly contagious illness appears. This likely surge during future health emergencies makes the enterprise somewhat antifragile– a term that describes an ability to thrive in times of shocks, attacks, sources of harm, or major failures. It would also be acquired by a larger, more diversified peer, such as Pfizer, Novartis, Merck, etc.
Nevertheless, the scale of the challenges facing Moderna are huge, executing on the turnaround will be difficult, and their game-changing mRNA technology does not guarantee success. Indeed, many revolutionary technologies – from the automobile to the internet – have made fundamental positive contributions to society but have not always translated into good returns for owners.
For our part, Moderna has joined our watchlist of discarded, beaten-up, and unloved firms. In the quarters and years ahead, we will be watching how its performance matches up against the C-suite’s stated goals through 2028, and analyst expectations. In the near term, however, we cannot see ourselves owning this revolutionary biotech pioneer.
Philip MacKellar is the general manager at Contra the Heard Investment Newsletter.