Moderna (MRNA -0.58%) has been quite busy. The company announced three positive developments last week, all of which have the potential to boost sales for its COVID-19 vaccine. In this Motley Fool Live video recorded on June 9, Motley Fool contributors Keith Speights and Brian Orelli discuss which of these is the most important catalyst for the biotech stock.
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Keith Speights: Brian, we were asked on Monday at the tail end of the segment, what's going on with Moderna? Moderna has actually been on a roll this week.
The company had three different announcements on Monday. It filed for a conditional approval of its COVID-19 vaccine and treating adolescents with the European Union. It filed for a similar authorization in Canada. Then third, the company announced a partnership with Medicine Pharma to market its COVID-19 vaccine throughout Central Eastern Europe and Israel.
Which of these do you think is the most important catalyst for Moderna?
Brian Orelli: They're all incrementally important. I didn't find any stats on populations for adolescents. But if you look at the population for all children, the EU population is substantially larger than Canada. If we're just comparing those two obviously filing in the EU, is much more important than filing in Canada for that reason alone.
The deal with Medicine Pharma didn't have any financial details so we don't know how much Moderna is giving up, probably as a royalty to Medicine to market it.
But nevertheless, I like the idea. It makes sense because setting up its own commercial organization there will be quite challenging, and take a lot of effort. I guess of the three the medicine deal makes most sense with the caveat that we don't actually know enough of the details to know how much they're giving up in terms of financing.
