Forbes - Moderna stock drops to eight-month low

Plus: U.S. cancels 44 Chinese flights in pandemic travel tussle

Moderna stock fell 4.4% today, closing at $160.07. That’s an eight-month low for the vaccine maker’s stock, which have fallen over 20% in the past week. Jeffries analyst Michael Yee put part of the blame on “overly high expectations” set last year. But he adds that falling share price puts Moderna’s valuation more in line with other biotech companies. Wall Street expects the company’s Covid vaccine sales will fall over the next few years as Covid becomes endemic and competition increases. On the bright side, Bank of America Geoff Meachem said the company's $17 billion in cash can serve as a source of opportunity for the company, and UBS analyst Eliana Merle is optimistic about long-term prospects for the company as it works to make vaccines for other diseases. The company is currently in clinical trials for a combination Covid/flu booster shot, and has plans to one day have a single shot that provides a booster vaccination for Covid, flu, RSV and possibly even some common colds.  

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More Covid News

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The CDC will not update its definition of “fully vaccinated” to include booster shots, but will instead only consider Americans “up to date” with their Covid-19 vaccinations if they’ve gotten the booster when eligible - which raises new questions about vaccine mandates.

Getting the whole world vaccinated for Covid-19 means providing countries with the logistical and medical resources needed to actually get vaccines into people’s arms.

U.K. health officials are investigating a sub-lineage of the omicron coronavirus variant—known as BA.2 and nicknamed by some scientists as “stealth omicron”—that appears to be outpacing other forms of the variant around the world. 

A federal district judge in Texas temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees. 

What Else We Are Reading

• Why scientists are racing to develop more COVID antivirals (Nature)

• To get to a ‘new normal,’ public health must focus on all respiratory viruses (Stat)

• Decoy vesicles protect against COVID-19 from coronavirus variants in early tests (Fierce Biotech)