Moderna, Inc. MRNA shares have skyrocketed 260.4% so far this year compared with the industry’s increase of 1.6%, riding on the progress of its development of coronavirus vaccine.

With the coronavirus pandemic infecting more than 24 million people worldwide and killing almost a million, the focus is increasing on pharmaceutical and biotech companies for any update on developing drugs and vaccines to help combat COVID-19. These companies are racing against time to successfully develop a treatment or vaccine to combat the disease. Moderna’s vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, is one of the leading candidates in this race.

Moderna was also the first company to start a clinical study to evaluate its coronavirus vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, in March. The company has shown encouraging progress with the candidate and has initiated a phase III study in late July. The study is evaluating 100 micrograms dose of mRNA-1273 administered on a two-dose vaccination schedule, given 28 days apart for safety and reactogenicity. Enrollment is expected to be completed in September.

Data from the phase I study on mRNA-1273 showed that participants vaccinated twice with mRNA-1273 led to rapid and strong immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 through day 57 across all doses. The data also showed that all participants were seroconverted (producing antibody against SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein) by day 15. The safety profile of the vaccine looked promising as no adverse events were reported through day 57 while unfavorable events were generally transient and mild to moderate in severity.

The company is also conducting a phase II study on the candidate simultaneously with the phase III study.

The company has partnerships with Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (“CEPI”) and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (“NIAID”) for developing the vaccine. These partnerships provide the company with funding to continue and accelerate the development process.

Moderna is also a part of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed (“OWS”), which aims to secure early access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for its people. Earlier this month, the company received an award of up to $1.53 billion from the U.S. government for supplying 100 million doses under the OWS program. Earlier, the company had received a federal funding of up to $955 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for mRNA-1273.

The encouraging progress with the development of mRNA-1273 and significant funding from several organizations to support the development and potential commercialization of mRNA-1273 have boosted share price of Moderna.

Apart from Moderna, a collaboration between Pfizer PFE and BioNTech BNTX, and AstraZeneca AZN and Oxford University are developing their coronavirus vaccine candidates in late-stage studies.

Translate Bio is developing an mRNA-based vaccine in collaboration with Sanofi. Several other vaccines, using different underlying technologies, are also in pre-clinical stage. Pharma giant J&J plans to initiate an early-stage study to develop coronavirus vaccine in September.

Zacks Rank

Moderna currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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