By Patrick Wingrove
(Reuters) -Moderna topped Wall Street sales expectations and reported a lower-than-expected second-quarter loss on Friday, driven by robust Spring COVID booster demand and aggressive cost cuts.
The company also lowered its 2025 sales forecast to $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion, cutting $300 million from the top end, as UK revenue deliveries shifted into early 2026.
Moderna said 40% to 50% of that revenue will be recognized in the third quarter of 2025, with the rest expected in the fourth.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based vaccine maker reported quarterly revenue of $142 million, a 41% drop from last year, but still ahead of analyst estimates of $112.9 million, according to LSEG data.
On an adjusted basis, Moderna posted a quarterly loss of $2.13 per share, less than $2.97 a share loss analysts had projected.
Moderna finance chief James Mock attributed the results to spring COVID booster shot uptake, which was down 11% year-over-year but higher than anticipated, and $800 million in cost cuts in the first half of 2025.
“I don’t think analysts thought we could get that much (in costs) out of the business,” he said. Mock added that the spring sales boost could signal solid demand for COVID vaccines this autumn.
The Spikevax COVID-19 shot delivered $114 million in sales, beating the expected $87 million for the quarter, but a far cry from its 2022 pandemic peak, when the vaccine brought in $18.4 billion.
The company did not disclose sales for mRESVIA, its RSV vaccine, saying they were negligible. Analysts had expected $1 million in quarterly sales for that shot.
Moderna said it plans to cut operating costs by $400 million in 2025, bringing them down to $5.9 billion to $6.1 billion. It had previously projected cuts of $4.7 billion to $5 billion by 2027.
The company on Thursday said it would cut around 10% of its global workforce, shrinking to under 5,000 employees by year’s end, as part of its move to trim operating expenses.
Mock said the job cuts would affect nearly every function at the company.
Moderna is counting on new mRNA products such as its experimental COVID-flu combo shot to offset slumping COVID vaccine sales and a slower-than-hoped rollout of the RSV shot.
Moderna, which voluntarily withdrew its COVID-flu combo shot approval application in May, said it is working with regulators to clarify data requirements for resubmission.
(Reporting by Patrick Wingrove in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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