R&D Day Reflections: Q&A with CFO Jamey Mock
Earlier this month, we hosted our seventh annual Research & Development Day at NASDAQ, where we showcased our expansion of the field of mRNA medicine to analysts and investors. This included several significant clinical updates across oncology, rare and infectious diseases and details on Moderna’s business aspirations for the years to come.
Jamey Mock, Chief Financial Officer of Moderna, reflects on our ambitious business goals outlined during R&D Day – including how we’ll get there, Moderna’s investment priorities, and the financial and clinical promise of our mRNA platform.
What are Moderna’s financial goals for the next five years?
At Moderna, we’re pushing the boundaries of mRNA science to help solve more of today’s most enduring health challenges. With an ambitious goal such as this comes an equally ambitious pipeline of products – we expect to launch up to 15 products across oncology, respiratory, rare and latent diseases by 2028, and up to four of those launches could come by 2025. From a financial perspective, we expect to add $10 billion – $15 billion in annual sales for these franchises five years after the launches, in addition to our projected $8 billion – $15 billion of expected sales from our respiratory franchise in 2027.
All of this to say – we are making significant investments in our mRNA platform because it continues to generate medicines that have demonstrated clinical benefit with speed and rigor.
What gives Moderna the confidence to achieve these goals?
At its core, Moderna is an mRNA platform company. When your products are all powered by a single platform, you can move incredibly quickly when it’s working. We’ve proven that our mRNA platform is not only working, but it’s powerful across a variety of therapeutic areas.
Our platform has allowed us to nearly double our pipeline in three years and our late-stage pipeline has matured dramatically. Within infectious disease, we are three-for-three in achieving primary endpoints in Phase 3 studies, with one filed for regulatory approval and one as a commercial product. We’re also three-for-three in our rare disease franchise in demonstrating potential clinical benefit, and continue to advance our oncology pipeline with positive data surrounding our individualized neoantigen therapy (INT).
These developments are what fuel our confidence to invest in the promise of our platform – our success rate has been higher than industry standards, and we know this is just the beginning. We have already advanced six programs into late-stage development, and we aim to double the number of programs in Phase 3 by 2025. In the preclinical realm, we expect to advance 50 new drug candidates into clinical trials.
What financial benefits come from the platform approach?
Being a platform-first company comes with many commonalities in how we run the company across R&D, commercial, and beyond, helping improve the efficiency of our investments.
For example, within research and development, our mRNA platform means we don’t need to reinvent the wheel with each new program - we can mimic our proven processes and technologies and optimize manufacturing to fit its needs. Our mRNA platform allows for rapid and iterative development – it’s the reason why it only took an average of 1-2 years to move our COVID-19, RSV and flu programs from Phase 1 to the end of Phase 3. A centralized platform means with the right adaptations, we have a formula for success that can be repurposed across a variety of disease areas.
What investments is Moderna making to achieve this?
We will continue to invest in our team and in the science to expand the field of mRNA medicine into new frontiers. This includes an investment of about $25 billion in R&D from 2024 through 2028, or an average of $5 billion per year.
While we assume this investment will generate a significant return, it’s ultimately an investment we’re making for our patients. It’s an example of our commitment to delivering life changing therapies with urgency and scientific rigor.
This post contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, including statements regarding: the potential for Moderna to launch up to 15 products in the next 5 years; plans to advance new products into clinical studies; the anticipated revenues from Moderna’s product sales in future years; Moderna’s success rates in developing new products; the financial benefits of Moderna’s mRNA platform; the speed with which Moderna might advance from preclinical development through approval; and the scale of future investments in Moderna’s research and development programs. The forward-looking statements in this presentation are neither promises nor guarantees, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond Moderna’s control and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, and other factors include, among others, those risks and uncertainties described under the heading “Risk Factors” in Moderna’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and in subsequent filings made by Moderna with the SEC, which are available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Except as required by law, Moderna disclaims any intention or responsibility for updating or revising any forward-looking statements contained in this presentation in the event of new information, future developments or otherwise. These forward-looking statements are based on Moderna’s current expectations and speak only as of the date of this presentation.