Written by Alex Grant
Over the past six months, Moderna and Pfizer have transformed themselves into household names. These two companies, which have both developed an extremely effective m-RNA based vaccine, have the potential to help bring the world out of the COVID-19 pandemic, boost the economy back to its pre-COVID levels, and save millions of lives. With such positive results and discussion in both the media and everyday life, conventional thought would imply that Moderna and Pfizer stocks would both have surged throughout this pandemic, as their vaccines are being injected into millions of people globally each day. However, this is not the case and there are many reasons why, Pfizer’s stock, specifically, has failed to keep up with its vaccine competitor, Moderna.
First, it is important to understand both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as a whole. Big Pharma, which includes companies like Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson, are both large businesses that research and produce drugs. The Biotech industry, home to companies such as Moderna, BioNTech, and NovaVax, is much smaller and has less established than the companies included in Big Pharma, which are often accused and criticized of severely overpricing their drugs and medications. Additionally, Biotech companies typically base their drugs on genetic engineering (i.e., DNA, and RNA), while pharmaceutical companies make their drugs using a chemical base (Noonan, 2021). It is important to note that Pfizer has paired up with BioNTech, a biotech company out of Germany, to produce their joint mRNA vaccine (Hopkins, 2021).
Many surprising findings can be found when looking at the growth of both Moderna’s and Pfizer’s stock over the past year. In March 2020, right before the pandemic truly began, Moderna stock was priced around $20, compared to its current price of $130 (as of April 1). This constitutes a growth rate of 550% during the past year from the once-small American biotech firm. On the other hand, Pfizer only grew about 20% from the start of the pandemic. First, this can be explained in the different market caps between the two companies. Pfizer’s market cap is about $202 billion (Yahoo Finance) and the growth of big pharmaceutical companies in the market tends to be exponentially slow. Moderna has a much smaller market cap of about $53 billion, which suggests that while there may be more risk in investing in the company than in Pfizer, they could produce higher returns and have more room for growth. Next, it is important to take a look at both companies’ history. While it has taken Pfizer’s stock a decade for its stock to double in price (Speights, 2021), Moderna has also struggled as the company has had only net losses for the past decade (McCabe, 2020). The successful development of its vaccine will mean the company will post a profit for the first time in company history, which will ultimately help its growth and expansion in other parts of its business as well as expanding its mRNA research and usage (McCabe, 2020). Another reason that Pfizer’s stock did not take off is its existing financials. Pfizer was first established in 1849 and has always been a powerhouse in the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, the company’s projected $14.6 billion in revenue from the successful vaccine will not make a huge difference in their current or future growth after paying out a share to BioNTech (McCabe, 2020). Moderna, on the other hand, was only started in 2010 and focuses solely on developing their mRNA technology. Another analysis on these stocks simply points to the fact that positive vaccine news and results have a greater effect on both society and the worlds’ wellbeing rather than the actual well-being of Pfizer and Moderna. As of late 2020, the S&P500 has outperformed both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology markets, despite the constant positive news coverage over vaccine development by the pharmaceutical and biotech industries during the pandemic (Mackintosh, 2021). This could suggest that while successful in their vaccine production, investors may have other stocks or investment vehicles on their minds. However, this vaccine suggests that the pharmaceutical and biotech industries have immense room for growth in the future.
The most important breakthrough of this past year, arguably, is not just the successful COVID-19 vaccine but the successful use of mRNA technology. mRNA technology includes using a dead virus and essentially instructs our body and immune response to make certain proteins that mimic the live virus. The mRNA technology, which is often produced and studied by biotechnology companies, is shown to be very successful in the COVID-19 vaccine. Comparing the efficacy rates of both Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA-based vaccine to Johnson & Johnson’s traditional vaccine, the rate of preventing symptoms in trials differed by a significant amount, with the mRNA vaccines producing a greater accuracy in preventing symptoms. This new technology will be extremely influential in the future of vaccines and medicines and could lead to breakthroughs against cancer (Mackintosh, 2021), not to mention that “Moderna is already using technology for other pipeline products, including a vaccine against the mosquito-borne Zika virus” (McCabe, 2020). Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla also predicts that the mRNA technology could enhance already manufactured vaccines with bad side effects, or even improve the effectiveness of vaccines for certain diseases (Hopkins, 2021). Furthermore, Pfizer teaming up with BioNTech could essentially blur the lines of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals in the years to come. The two companies first started collaborating in 2018, however, Albert Bourla commented that “completing crucial steps such as designing and conducting clinical trials and securing specialized raw materials for manufacturing, Pfizer is confident it can do mRNA vaccines alone” (Hopkins, 2021).
The biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors began the race to the vaccine last March. The mRNA technology produced by biotechnology firms, as well as their smaller market cap in contrast to big pharma, has exponentially increased the share price of many biotechnology firms, including Moderna. Pfizer’s successful vaccine has not drastically changed the company’s future growth and financials as of now, which is why their stock has stayed relatively constant throughout the past year despite their immense level of success. However, these industries will be interesting to watch as the mRNA technology begins to blur the line between these two business sectors and become more of a potential catalyst of growth for both pharmaceutical companies as well as the continued growth of biotech.
Works Cited
Hopkins, J.,(2021, March 23). WSJ News Exclusive | Pfizer Goes It Alone to Expand Vaccine Business
Beyond Covid-19 Pandemic. [online] WSJ. Available at: <https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-goes-it-alone-to-expand-vaccine-business-beyond-covid-19-pandemic-11616491800> [Accessed 3 April 2021].
Mackintosh, J., 2021. (2021, November 17). There Is No Vaccine Against These Investing Mistakes. [online] WSJ. Available at: <https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-is-no-vaccine-against-these-investing-mistakes-11605614401> [Accessed 3 April 2021].
McCabe, Caitlin, et al. (2020, December 14) “Where Do Covid-19 Vaccine Stocks Go From Here?” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 14 Dec. 2020, www.wsj.com/graphics/covid19-vaccine-stocks/.
Noonan, K., 2021. What’s the difference between biotech and pharma?. [online] Alacrita.com. Available at: <https://www.alacrita.com/blog/whats-difference-biotech-pharma> [Accessed 3 April 2021].
NYSE. (2021, April 2). Pfizer, Inc. (PFE).[36.30]. Retrieved from https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PFE?p=PFE&.tsrc=fin-srch.
Speights, K., (2021, January 14). 2 COVID Vaccine Stocks That Could Trounce Pfizer and Moderna in 2021. [online] Nasdaq. Available at: <https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/2-covid-vaccine-stocks-that-could-trounce-pfizer-and-moderna-in-2021-2021-01-14> [Accessed 3 April 2021].