(Reuters) – Moderna Inc on Wednesday retained its full-year sales outlook for COVID-19 shot at $21 billion due to decreasing orders from low- and middle-income countries through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program.
The unchanged forecast came despite Moderna’s $1.74 billion deal last week with the U.S. government for 66 million doses of a vaccine updated for Omicron subvariants.
“It’s because of COVAX. As you remember, we have a partnership with COVAX to supply product to low-income countries. COVAX does not want the doses that they have ordered,” Chief Executive Stephane Bancel told Reuters.
Market expectations of an increase in vaccine sales have been dropping, with analysts divided on the sustainability of that dizzying growth beyond 2022 on doubts over demand for booster doses.
Moderna reported $4.5 billion in sales of its shot in the second-quarter ended June 30. Three analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected quarterly sales of $3.16 billion.
Shares of the company rose 3.5% to $166.47 in premarket trading after Moderna announced a $3 billion share buyback plan.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru and Michael Erman in New Jersey; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
