By Senad Karaahmetovic
Shares of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) are trading more than 11% lower in pre-market Thursday after the vaccine maker missed analyst expectations by a wide margin.
Moderna reported a Q3 EPS of $2.53 on revenue of $3.36 billion, a big miss compared to the consensus of $4.81 on revenue of $4.63 billion. Covid-19 vaccine revenue was reported at $3.12 billion, missing the $3.86 billion estimate.
Moderna said Q3 vaccine sales were lower “primarily driven by lower sales volume due to the timing of market authorizations for our COVID-19 bivalent boosters and the related manufacturing ramp up.”
Expenses also came in much higher, at $2.2 billion vs $1.52 billion consensus. The Q3 earnings also include a $333 million charge for “inventory write-downs related to COVID-19 products that have exceeded or are expected to exceed their approved shelf-lives prior to being used.”
Moderna also cut its full-year forecast for vaccine sales so that it now expects the value of purchase agreements between $18 billion and $19 billion, a large miss compared to the $21 billion consensus.