Moderna Swings to a Profit and Raises Its Revenue Outlook as Overseas COVID Sales Beat Forecasts

Moderna swung to a third-quarter profit and raised its full-year revenue outlook on Friday, after COVID vaccine sales abroad drove revenue far past Wall Street forecasts.

The vaccine maker reported revenue of $1.3 billion for the quarter ended September 30, up 29% from $1.0 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected $890 million, according to FactSet estimates reported by MarketWatch.

The profit followed the sales. Net income was $162 million, or $0.38 a share, against a net loss of $200 million, or $0.51 a share, a year earlier. FactSet had expected a loss of $0.80 a share.

Investors bought the print before the open. Shares rose about 7% in premarket trading, according to a Reuters reading at about 7:14 a.m. ET on Friday.

Built overseas

International markets supplied $533 million of the quarter's revenue, against $780 million in the United States. The company credited higher COVID vaccine sales abroad, helped by deliveries under long-term government partnerships.

Product sales were $1.27 billion of the $1.31 billion total. Nearly all of that revenue still comes from Spikevax, the COVID vaccine, MarketWatch noted.

Below the sales line, costs fell where the company is shrinking. Research and development spending dropped 27% to $583 million as late-stage studies in infectious disease wound down. Cost of sales rose 54% to $318 million, on higher sales volume.

A bigger year, on both ends of the outlook

Moderna now expects total revenue growth of 15% to 25% in 2026, exceeding its previous outlook of up to 10% growth. It still expects roughly half of the year's revenue from the United States and half from abroad.

The cost frame tightened with it. Full-year research and development spending is now expected at about $2.7 billion, reduced from about $2.9 billion.

The cash outlook moved most. Year-end cash and investments are now expected at $8.1 billion to $8.3 billion, up from $4.7 billion to $5.2 billion.

At September 30, the company held $8.0 billion in cash, cash equivalents and investments. The rebuild leans on financing: a convertible-notes sale in September, about $3.0 billion in principal, brought in about $2.6 billion in net proceeds.

The quarter's sales were also largely uncollected at quarter-end. Accounts receivable rose to $1.37 billion from $184 million at the end of 2025, because most third-quarter product sales remained unpaid on September 30.

The quarter also closed old business. Moderna and GSK settled all of their pending patent disputes in the United States and Europe on October 28, granting each other cross-licenses with no payments either way.

The diversification test

In August, U.S. regulators approved mFLUSIVA, Moderna's seasonal flu vaccine and its fifth approved product worldwide. Reuters called it the first authorization of an mRNA-based seasonal flu shot.

The launch this season is limited, because approval came after the annual flu-vaccine contracting cycle had closed. Canada has approved mFLUSIVA too, along with the company's flu and COVID combination vaccine.

The cancer program supplied October's headline data. Intismeran, a personalized cancer vaccine built from a patient's own tumor material, combined with Merck's Keytruda to cut the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 42% in a Phase 3 trial.

The two companies are preparing regulatory submissions and a possible commercial launch, subject to approval. Not every program advanced: the norovirus vaccine candidate missed the early-success bar at a Phase 3 interim look, and no new cohort will start this season.

A stock that had already run

Thursday's session had cut the other way. The shares fell 6.6% to $245.95 in the broad market rout, before Friday's premarket recovery.

Even after that fall, the stock is up 682% this year on FactSet figures reported by MarketWatch, the S&P 500's top gainer. That run prices in much of the cancer-vaccine promise the outlook now has to deliver.

What remains unknown

Whether the international COVID demand that powered the quarter repeats is untested. The third quarter is usually Moderna's largest of the year, and the raised outlook still leans on a strong finish.

How much mFLUSIVA sells once flu contracting reopens is also open, and no regulator has yet ruled on intismeran. A pivotal readout in propionic acidemia, a rare inherited metabolic disorder, is expected this year.

What to watch: Moderna's analyst day on November 12, the fourth-quarter print against the raised growth range, and the first regulatory filing for intismeran.