Moderna swings to profit and lifts 2026 sales outlook as new flu shot and cancer therapy gain traction

Moderna reported a surprise third-quarter profit on Friday and raised its full-year revenue growth forecast for 2026, as newly approved vaccines and encouraging cancer-therapy data helped offset the company's continuing dependence on COVID-19 vaccine sales for the bulk of its revenue.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Moderna said third-quarter revenue rose 29 percent from a year earlier, to $1.31 billion, comfortably ahead of the $885.1 million analysts tracked by LSEG had forecast. The company posted net income of $162 million, or 38 cents a diluted share, compared with a net loss of $200 million, or 51 cents a share, in the same period last year. Wall Street had expected a loss of roughly $1.25 a share, according to CNBC, making the swing to profit one of the sharper earnings surprises of the week.

A bigger target for the year

Moderna told investors it now expects total 2026 revenue to grow between 15 percent and 25 percent, up from a previous forecast of growth of up to 10 percent. The company's third-quarter financial framework also trimmed projected full-year research and development spending to about $2.7 billion, from roughly $2.9 billion, and raised its expected year-end cash position to between $8.1 billion and $8.3 billion, up sharply from a prior range of $4.7 billion to $5.2 billion.

• Q3 2026 revenue: $1.31 billion, up 29 percent year over year
• Net income: $162 million (38 cents per diluted share), versus a $200 million loss a year earlier
• Full-year 2026 revenue growth guidance: raised to 15–25 percent, from up to 10 percent
• Cash and investments on hand at quarter's end: $8.0 billion, up from $6.9 billion three months earlier

The company's quarterly report filed with the SEC shows the cash build was driven in part by roughly $2.6 billion in net proceeds from a convertible-notes offering, partially offset by a $950 million litigation settlement payment made during the quarter. The company's guidance for the year ahead also includes a one-time $900 million litigation-related charge within its projected cost of sales.

A flu shot and a cancer therapy change the narrative

Much of the shift in sentiment traces to two developments outside the earnings report itself. In August, the Food and Drug Administration approved mFLUSIVA, Moderna's messenger-RNA flu vaccine, for adults 50 and older — full approval for ages 50 to 64 and an accelerated approval, pending confirmatory trial data, for those 65 and up. Company executives have described it as Moderna's fifth approved product worldwide.

Days later, Moderna and its partner Merck announced that a Phase 3 trial of intismeran autogene, an individualized cancer therapy, combined with Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, had met its main goals in patients with high-risk, surgically removed melanoma. According to Merck's own announcement of the results, the trial — called INTerpath-001 and enrolling 1,137 patients — met its primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival and a key secondary endpoint, distant metastasis-free survival, with the companies describing both improvements as statistically significant and clinically meaningful. Moderna's third-quarter filing went further, disclosing that the combination showed a 42 percent reduction in the risk of recurrence or death compared with Keytruda alone, a benefit that grew to a 58 percent reduction after the first six months of follow-up. Overall survival data are still being collected.

The melanoma result built on earlier, smaller-scale findings: a five-year follow-up of an earlier Phase 2b trial, cited in Merck's release, had shown a 49 percent reduction in the risk of recurrence or death and a 59 percent reduction in the risk of distant metastasis when the same combination was compared with Keytruda alone.

Investors have already piled in

The scale of investor enthusiasm predates Friday's earnings report. Moderna shares have gained more than 700 percent so far in 2026, according to figures compiled by the financial analysis site Trefis, pushing the stock to levels near 52-week highs even before the quarterly numbers arrived. CNBC reported shares rose roughly 3 percent in premarket trading after the release; by the close of Friday's session, according to a Simply Wall St analysis published on Yahoo Finance, shares had climbed 5.3 percent, to $254.19.

"We delivered 29% revenue growth in the third quarter, alongside the U.S. approval of mFLUSIVA, our fifth approved product globally, and positive Phase 3 results for intismeran in melanoma. Building on this momentum, we increased our full-year revenue growth outlook to 15%-25%, while continuing to reduce costs and strengthen our balance sheet. Looking ahead, we anticipate additional intismeran readouts, pivotal data in propionic acidemia and further regulatory approvals as we advance our pipeline and build a more diversified company," Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel said in the earnings release.

Bancel's reference to propionic acidemia points to mRNA-3927, an experimental messenger-RNA therapy for the rare, life-threatening metabolic disorder. Moderna struck a deal in January with the Italian drugmaker Recordati to commercialize the therapy outside clinical development, and the company has said pivotal trial data are expected before the end of 2026.

Not every program delivered good news

The quarter also brought a setback. Moderna disclosed that an interim analysis of its Phase 3 norovirus vaccine trial failed to meet the statistical criteria required for early success, and the company said it does not plan to enroll an additional study cohort this season. The result is a reminder that Moderna's attempt to build a broader infectious-disease and oncology business beyond COVID-19 remains a work in progress, even as the flu and melanoma news dominates the current narrative.

The company's underlying business still leans heavily on COVID-19 vaccines: company figures show $780 million of the quarter's revenue came from the United States and $533 million from international markets, with growth driven substantially by COVID vaccine sales tied to long-term international government supply agreements. According to the Yahoo Finance analysis, Moderna's pipeline currently includes nine Phase 1, sixteen Phase 2 and seven Phase 3 programs — a breadth that bulls argue could eventually diversify revenue away from vaccines tied to a single respiratory virus, and that skeptics say has yet to prove it can generate sales at the scale now priced into the stock.

What comes next

Moderna and Merck have said they plan to present full INTerpath-001 data at an international medical meeting and to begin engaging regulators on potential filings for intismeran, though the therapy remains investigational and unapproved for any use. Moderna's limited 2026-2027 season launch of mFLUSIVA, meanwhile, will offer an early read on real-world uptake of the first mRNA-based flu vaccine cleared for use in the United States. Investors are likely to watch closely for the propionic acidemia data Bancel flagged, along with any further word on regulatory reviews of mFLUSIVA now underway in the European Union, Canada and Australia.