Why Moderna Stock Is Already Up 25% This Year

Why Moderna Stock Is Already Up 25% This Year

An illustrative photo showing medical syringes seen in front of Moderna logo displayed on screens in ... [+] the background on Christmas Eve. On Thursday, December 24, 2020, in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo illustration by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)



NurPhoto via Getty Images

Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) stock has rallied by almost 25% since the beginning of this year, currently trading at levels of around $130 per share. There are a couple of developments that are likely driving the gains.

Firstly, the company said that it was expanding its pipeline, developing three new vaccine candidates against seasonal flu, HIV, and the Nipah virus. Although this is seen as a relatively ambitious effort, considering that some of these diseases have eluded traditional vaccines so far, Moderna is hoping that it can address them with its mRNA technology, which has proven highly effective in the Covid-19 vaccine. The upsides from these potential vaccines could be sizable.

Secondly, Moderna provided updates on the manufacturing of its Covid-19 vaccine, noting that it was increasing the baseline production estimate for this year to 600 million doses, 100 million more than it had initially projected while targeting as many as 1 billion