Moderna stock slides 14% premarket after profit and revenue fall short of estimates and biotech offers soft guidance

Moderna Inc. shares slid 14% in premarket trade Thursday, after the COVID vaccine maker posted far weaker-than-expected third-quarter earnings and said short-term supply constraints would impact 2022 advance purchase agreements. The Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech posted net income of $1.043 billion, or $2.53 a share, for the quarter, down from $3.333 billion, or $7.70 a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue fell to $3.364 billion from $4.969 billion a year ago. Both numbers were below the FactSet consensus, which was for EPS of $3.30 and revenue of $3.527 billion. The company said advanced purchase agreements, or APAs, for delivery this year come to $18 billion to $19 billion of product sales. The FactSet consensus is for full-year sales of $21.3 billion. Third-quarter revenue was hurt by a decline in sales of its COVID vaccine, as well as lower sales volume due to the timing of market authorizations for its bivalent COVID booster and the related manufacturing time ramp-up. Cost of sales came to $1.1 billion, or 35% of product sales, including a $333 million charge for inventory writedowns relating to COVID products that exceeded their shelf life prior to being used. The company also took an expense on unused manufacturing capacity of $209 million and a loss of firm purchase commitments and related cancellation charge of $102 million, driven by a shift in product demand to the bivalent booster. For 2023, the company has APAs of $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion. The FactSet consensus for 2023 sales is for $9.4 billion. Shares have fallen 42% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 has fallen 21%.

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