Moderna (MRNA 0.89%) recently announced an impressive efficacy of 94.5% from a late-stage study of coronavirus vaccine candidate mRNA-1273. The biotech stock jumped on the good news, but is it still a good pick to buy? That's the question that Healthcare and Cannabis Bureau Chief Corinne Cardina and Fool.com writer Keith Speights address in this Motley Fool Live video recorded on Nov. 16, 2020.
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Corinne Cardina: I don't want to bury the lede, so I'm I go ahead and ask you what you think of Moderna as a potential investment today? The stock is up about $6 on the news of this interim analysis. Do you think that with Moderna, this expectation of safe and efficacious vaccine is already baked in? Will you cautiously say it's a buy? What do you think?
Keith Speights: First of all, I think you're exactly right. I think the expectation was, to a large extent, already baked into the price. This wasn't a double-digit percentage gain from Moderna this morning. That's just a reflection of investors anticipating this good news, especially in light of Pfizer's news last week.
First of all, I do think some of the news was already baked into the price, but I do think Moderna could be an intriguing investment opportunity for aggressive investors. There's still risk with this stock, definitely. But the news for their interim results today was very good.
I think it looks likely at this point that they will be able to receive emergency use authorization for their vaccine and potentially approvals in other countries. But this is just the beginning for Moderna. They have a very loaded pipeline with other mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. I think the success of their COVID-19 vaccine could bode well for the rest of their pipeline.
Corinne Cardina: Absolutely, especially for Moderna, which I didn't think I realized this until recently, but did you know that the mRNA is all in the name Moderna? Fun fact.
Keith Speights: And it's their stock ticker as well. [Laughing]
Corinne Cardina: Of course. That is big news, proof of concept of basically their entire concept. There's still some near-term catalyst for this stock. The emergency use authorization, if that happens, I could see the stock going up once it rolls out on the market. I could see that also propelling the stock forward. So I don't think it reached an all-time high so far, but maybe not in the future. We'll have to keep an eye on it for sure.
