Moderna’s cash pile is melting faster than a snowbank in spring. It peaked at $21 billion during the pandemic, was still $19 billion by end-2022, and then bled $4 billion a year for the next two years — not counting a $1 billion buyback in 2023.
2025 has begun in the same key, with another $1 billion gone in the first quarter. What’s left in the till? About $8 billion. Subtract that from a $10 billion market cap, and you get an enterprise value of just $2 billion. Not exactly a vote of confidence in Moderna’s pipeline.
That pipeline, to be fair, isn’t empty. Beyond its fading Covid franchise, Moderna has two vaccines nearing market launch — one for RSV, another for seasonal flu — plus a series of early-stage prospects. Yet the market values the lot at barely half a year of R&D spending.
Investors who bet on a post-Covid Moderna have paid dearly for the lesson. At $26, the stock is down seventeen-fold from its 2021 peak. In that light, the $5 billion of buybacks between 2021 and 2023, at far higher prices, look less like capital allocation and more like self-immolation.
The writing was on the wall. Insider selling surged at the height of Moderna’s glory, as executives cashed out in bulk. There’s been no real reversal since, though CEO Stéphane Bancel — still holding 5.5 million shares — did pick up 160,000 more earlier this year at $31.
Still, that $5 million purchase pales in comparison to the $1.1 billion pre-tax he pocketed from stock sales between 2020 and 2023. His timing was, shall we say, sharper than Moderna’s own buybacks.
Bancel made his exit while the company held the door. He sold high, with shareholders’ money footing the bill. Bravo l’artiste.