'We might not be in a great spot in the fall'

Moderna may have some serious competition on the way from Biotron?

https://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/w...t-spot-in-the-fall-moderna-ceo-190810232.html



COVID-19: 'We might not be in a great spot in the fall': Moderna CEO

Anjalee Khemlani
·Senior Reporter
Fri, 6 May 2022, 5:08 am

The majority of Moderna's (MNRA) revenue comes from governments abroad — which are bracing are for an ongoing need for COVID-19 vaccines this year.
While the U.S. waits on funding and for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to decide on which virus strain to attack through boosters, Moderna and other vaccine companies are anticipating waning immunity to become a concern.
"This virus is not getting less infectious," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told Yahoo Finance. "As you see more and more infectious variants ... We are not done with this virus mutating," he said.
The biggest risk in the fall, if boosting is delayed, is the potential for hospitals to fill up with those that are the most vulnerable all over again, Bancel said.
The increased circulation from the intersection of waning immunity and a more transmissible variant, as is being observed with more Omicron subvariants in the U.S. and abroad, is the real risk, he said.
"We have a risk in the fall — if we don't have the booster campaign early enough —that we might not be in a great spot in the fall," Bancel said.
Meanwhile, increased global circulation also feeds into the sprouting of more variants.
Of the $5.9 billion in revenue from the vaccine in the first quarter of this year — a significant jump from $1.7 billion in Q1 2021 — a majority is coming from countries other than the U.S., according to Moderna.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has been pushing the company to share its vaccine recipe even as it fails to order more doses through the COVAX facility program for lower and middle income countries.
Moderna said during its annual shareholder meeting that it is selling its vaccine as low as $7 per dose to those countries and has waived its patent enforcement of the vaccine, in addition to its plans for a plant in Kenya in the coming years.