What happened
On Tuesday, star biotech stock Moderna (MRNA 0.30%) had one of those rare days in which it declined in price while the broader market rose. On the back of a fresh analyst price-target cut, the company's shares tumbled by nearly 4% in contrast to the S&P 500 index's more than 1% gain.
So what
The prognosticator who lost a little faith in Moderna is Morgan Stanley's Matthew Harrison. Before market open, Harrison reduced his price target on the stock to $175 per share, down from his previous level of $197. He's not yet a would-be seller, though, as he's maintaining his equal weight (read: neutral) recommendation on the shares.
It wasn't immediately clear why Harrison made his cut. Yet the move comes a day after the company and Gavi, the global vaccine alliance formed to get coronavirus jabs to recipients in disadvantaged countries, mutually agreed to cancel remaining vaccine orders. Previously, Moderna had provided almost 100 million doses of its Spikevax COVID-19 shot to countries covered in the program.
Despite the cancellation, Moderna and Gavi aren't going their separate ways quite yet. The biotech said that the two have agreed to "create a new framework" that would provide Gavi with an option of purchasing up to 100 million doses next year.
Now what
The downgrade and the cancellation are two further signs that the coronavirus pandemic is -- hopefully -- continuing to melt away. In the U.S., COVID cases, hospitalization, and death rates continue to decline, at times precipitously.
While this is excellent news for public health, it also illustrates the fact that Spikevax is Moderna's only commercialized product so far, and the company will soon need to bring others to market.
