Moderna to reap $18.4B off COVID-19 vaccines in 2021
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Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna on Thursday announced it expects $18.4 billion in product sales in 2021 for its COVID-19 vaccine.
"2020 was a historic year for Moderna," Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna, said over an earnings call. He projected 2021 will mark an "inflection year" for the company.
Advance purchase agreements were signed to supply the vaccine to 40 countries over 2021, including the U.S., Japan, Canada, South Korea, U.K. and others. Following emergency authorizations for the COVID-19 vaccine from the U.S. FDA and Health Canada, Moderna saw $200 million in product sales in late December, company executives said.
Meanwhile, deals involving COVAX are still under negotiation. COVAX is an initiative co-led by the World Health Organization for an equitable supply of coronavirus vaccines in developing countries.
Moderna has ramped up a global manufacturing plan from 600 million to 700 million doses this year, aiming to build supply up to 1 billion doses in 2021, and 1.4 billion doses in 2022.
Cost of sales including manufacturing, warehousing and other logistics was 4% in 2020, though Moderna modeled this figure to surge to 20% this year.
The news comes after Moderna on Wednesday announced that the COVID-19 vaccine it recently developed to address a concerning new coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa is ready to be tested in humans in clinical trials. Moderna in a news release said that it has shipped the first batch of doses of the new jab to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to commence a Phase 1 clinical trial "that will be led and funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)."
Fox News' Madeline Farber contributed to this report.
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