A long, sustained bull run is in front of Moderna (MRNA 2.43%) stock, if a top analyst's predictions come true. On Thursday, Hartaj Singh, Oppenheimer & Co.'s managing director and senior analyst of biotechnology, said in an interview that the coronavirus vaccine developer could see its market capitalization rise to -- and even surpass -- $100 billion before long.
At the moment, the company is worth over $58 billion.
"I think with Moderna's coronavirus vaccine franchise, and they're also starting to develop flu vaccines which should hit the market in the next couple of years ... you know, we could see a $10 billion franchise five to seven years from now," Singh said in an interview on CNBC's Street Signs Europe program.
"If you put a 10-times-sales multiple on that then, you can do the math, then it's a $100-billion-plus market cap company," he added.
Image source: Getty Images.
Moderna rose to fame on mRNA-1273, its highly effective coronavirus vaccine. So far, it is one of only two such vaccines to receive Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration.
The vaccine is already quite the engine of growth for the company. Also on Thursday, Moderna released its fourth-quarter 2020 results, which showed that it earned revenue of $571 million. Not only was that far above analyst estimates, it was also 40-plus times higher than the year-ago tally. This was due, it nearly goes without saying, to the coronavirus vaccine.
While the company posted a deeper-than-expected net loss, that torrid growth rate (and perhaps Singh's extremely bullish outlook) drove its stock higher on an awful Thursday for the broader market. Moderna closed 2.5% higher, which nearly matched the percentage by which the S&P 500 declined on the day.
