Moderna Inc (NASDAQ:MRNA, ETR:0QF) could face a longer-term threat from a newly announced US government initiative to develop universal vaccines for pandemic-prone viruses, analysts at Jefferies said on Friday.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) unveiled plans this week to build a next-generation vaccine platform aimed at creating broad-spectrum, long-lasting protection against viruses like avian flu and coronaviruses.
The project, backed by $500 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), will focus on vaccines that may not need to be updated annually — a potential competitive threat to current vaccine manufacturers, including Moderna.
"This seems competitive to all the current manufacturers, including MRNA, and needs to be watched," Jefferies analysts wrote in a note.
The new platform will prioritize inactivated whole-virus vaccines, a more traditional approach that delivers a chemically modified virus incapable of infecting human cells. While the NIH's approach relies on older vaccine technology, Jefferies noted that it carries higher risk of side effects, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), compared to Moderna’s mRNA-based vaccines.
"Most vaccine companies have moved away from whole-virus vaccines, given their increased reactogenicity with more side effects," the analysts wrote. "We see low to limited risk of GBS with mRNA-based vaccines."
The NIH is aiming to bring its first universal flu vaccine to market by 2029, with clinical trials expected to begin in 2026. The most advanced candidate, BPL-1375, targets the H5N1 bird flu strain.
Jefferies said the NIH's timeline suggests minimal short-term financial impact for Moderna but warned that the announcement adds to ongoing uncertainty in the vaccine market under the current US administration.
“These continued headlines continue to add to the negative sentiment and uncertainty around the vaccine environment,” the firm noted.
Shares of Moderna were up around 1.4% on Friday afternoon.