Moderna upgraded to Buy at Deutsche Bank on post-Q2 estimates
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Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) extended intraday gains into the post-market trading Wednesday after Deutsche Bank upgraded the COVID-19 vaccine maker to Buy from Hold citing revised estimates to account for its better-than-expected Q2 2022 financials and recent developments.
The analyst Emmanuel Papadakis notes the recent government contracts Moderna (MRNA) won in the U.S., which the company excluded from 2022 guidance. The $1.7B deal required the delivery of 66M vaccine doses in 2022 with options for another 234M doses, the analyst pointed out.
Despite negatives related to MRNAâs COVAX orders and pressure on the companyâs gross margins, the newly announced $3B share buyback program mitigated the impact, the analyst added, issuing a $165 per share target on the stock.
âMRNA has been more forthright with its buyback programme,â Papadakis wrote, noting that the stockâs multiple will expand at a similar rate to that of rival mRNA-based vaccine maker BioNTech (BNTX), which, the analyst says, has a âmore robustâ valuation support.
However, the analyst highlights MRNAâs near-term optionality on infectious diseases, while BNTX focuses more on oncology.
Read: Deutsche Bank upgraded MRNA to Hold early this year after initiating coverage with a Sell rating in Oct. 2021.