Biopharma Moderna MRNA is 14.93% higher at $46.50 making fresh record highs after the announcement that will receive a $483 million award from Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to fund manufacturing scale-up and the development of the company’s SARS-CoV-2 vaccine mRNA-1273.
mRNA-1273 Phase 1 study started on March 16 and has already completed enrollment of 3 dose cohorts (25 µg, 100 µg and 250 µg) and is now expanding to an additional 6 cohorts of older adults and elderly adults. Moderna expects the Phase 2 study to begin in the second half of 2020.
Moderna with the new funding will hire up to 150 new staff members and believe that would be able to supply millions of doses per month this year and with further investments, tens of millions per month in 2021 if the vaccine candidate is successful in the clinical trials.
Earlier today news that Gilead Sciences drug Remdesivir shows positive results in treating the coronavirus boost the sentiment around the pharm sector. Gilead’s Remdesivir is one of the first medicines proposed as having the potential to fight SARS-CoV-2, the novel virus that causes the COVID-19.
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MRNA Technical Analysis
Moderna stock started with a huge gap up after the positive news about the new funding and hits all-time highs as the fight against the coronavirus outbreak intensifies. The technical picture is bullish but very risky as the stock price has reached overbought level. I expect that the news around the coronavirus vaccine and treatment to be the main driver of the stock price in the upcoming weeks.
On the technical side, immediate resistance stands at $49 the daily and all-time highs. Next resistance will be met at $50 the psychological mark.
On the other hand, first support will be met at 43.368 the daily low. Next level to watch is the high from yesterday’s session at $41.60 that will also signal the closing of today’s gap and might attract more sellers, targeting 36.59 the low from yesterday trading session.
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