Since this is growing and volatile, I thought separate topic on MRNA.
Why is the Moderna vaccine the most expensive?
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The market cap is already $62B. Pfizer has a bunch of powerhouse drugs and is worth $222B. Merck is $206B. They’re going to need a lot more than a single vaccine to go 10x. Their trailing 12-month revenue is $81M. So they trade at a cool 765x revenue.
Even if they get a billion people to take their vaccine and 2 doses, that’s $70B revenue. That’s optimistic since there will be discounts negotiated, they’ll have to charge less in low income countries, etc. How much profit would they generate from it? Then there’s the whole issue of could they even manufacture that many dosages in a year.
Did anyone get insanely rich off flu, polio, or any other vaccine?
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So extended. Way above the upper Bollinger band. Also very overbought.
Edit:
Although share price drops today, short put makes money because of IV crush. Yesterday was 128, today is 117 
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When fundamentals are strong, technical won’t stand except brief period. IMO, MRNA is down with this news as Merck is also strategically moving out.
Again, MRNA is innovation like TSLA, finding a remedy for a worldwide medical issue. This company did that in one year. If FDA approves, stock will have potential to go up.
Israel is in action now.
The time to buy was in February. To me, now is too late. Only upside is if these manufacturers are allowed immunity to liability for the Covid vaccines. I believe Moderna already asked for that in Europe and it was not favorably viewed because it means they don’t believe their product is safe, but I don’t know if it was granted.
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Not really. Every drug is not safe in that there is always the unpredictable long term effect and unsafe to a small group of people. Wise to ask for “immunity to liability” while people are desperate for your drug even though there are no known serious side effects. Buying insurance to protect “black swan” disaster is 
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My Qn about MRNA is, can it find sustainable revenue stream at the same and rising level out of solution to one virus/Covid-19?
So, do current valuations reflect potential new drug discoveries in the future?
Lol. That was exactly my point about unintended consequences of giving billions of people the vaccine.
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The unpredictable becomes infinity as this is unknown. If there is known side effect, there will be another patch release.
Those who are skeptical about this with infinity possibility of side effects, will be missing the boat the same way people missed the TSLA (with lot of bankruptcy discussions…etc).
This is life saving drug for many when Covid gets increased and it is innovated by newly formed start up company. The world has the demand and once FDA approves, this will fly high further.
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Right. For the Pharm companies, the question is can they make more profit than they pay in damages? For many drugs they actually can and do make a profit after payouts (Vioxx I believe was still profitable), but the bad news can tank the stock. For childhood vaccines, though, it’s clear that they thought they couldn’t–that’s why they threatened to stop making them and they got the 1986 National Vaccine Injury act passed. Part of it is that injuring a child is way more expensive than injuring an elderly person due to cost of life-care and loss of income considerations.
Pharm stocks, to me, are best bought on bad news–they’re never going to close down, so you’re just trying to ride the mood of the investors. So this is the wrong time to buy because everyone is feeling good about the vaccines.
PS: In Europe, they do not have the same immunity from liability as in the US. Which makes you wonder a bit…
For startups and biotechs, can mean insolvency. PFE MRK or similar large firms should be ok.
Two types of trading.
Swing - Buy low sell high
Momentum - Buy high sell higher
Recent traders are mostly momentum traders. It works very well since Mar low
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If no WSJ access, Here is downloadable version to read offline.
What is your math for them to 10x? They’d be worth $600B. They’d be as big as Merck + Pfizer + more. They’d literally be the biggest pharma company in the world by market cap. All from a single vaccine that’s $35/dosage, and there’s no way the $35 price sticks. They’d need a full pipeline of other stuff. The price is similar to the flu vaccine. The makers of that aren’t worth $600B. Even if they sell 2B dosages (1B people and 2x a person) a year that’s only $70B in revenue.
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Oh, no ! This is already 680% jump this year. IMO, It can be doubled to appx 100B company.
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Why didn’t you tell us earlier then? 
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Waaaaay earlier…
I was trading from $30, but learnt their success very late around $90, then stopped trading. Their momentum was started around $80. I actually posted this around $92-97, no one believed even and it jumped to $150 from there onwards.
Even now, no one believe in MRNA that it can go to $300…That is the issue. People are skeptical about their success.
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Same way, Uber and Lyft reached their bottom when prop 22 passed and they are going up with covid medicine reality.
Similarly, CUK, and many REITs are going up crazy.
I have been telling all covid based corrected stocks are recovering and going as medicine is in sight. Pfizer even brought Covid medicine to USA at various locations and waiting for FDA approval. we will have real medicine within 10 days every big cities in USA.