The company reported $200 million in net losses for the third quarter, but an aggressive and highly successful cost-cutting campaign is helping to stem the downward trend.
“The net loss for the quarter was $200 million,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel intoned gravely to lead off the company’s third quarter earnings call Thursday morning.
But it was not all bad news for the embattled mRNA vaccine manufacturer. While the company posted losses for the third straight quarter this year, they have shrunk each period, from $1 billion in the first, to $800 million in the second, to one quarter of that for the three months ending in September. The company was last in the black in the third quarter of 2024, when it made $13 million, though it posted losses in the two quarters before that as well.
Executives on the call reiterated their pledge for the company to achieve profitability. Between taking money in and spending less, a good amount of closing that gap is coming from a sweeping cost reduction plan.
“I’m pleased to announce that continued cost reduction efforts across the company in the third quarter of 2025 led to a 34% reduction” in expenditures in research and development, sales and other departments, Bancel noted. The company’s goal was to knock operating expenses from $7.2 billion in 2024 to $6.4 billion in 2025. On the call, CFO Jamey Mock announced that the cost reduction plan is exceeding expectations.
“I’m happy to report that we are now on track to beat our 2025 cost plan by over $1 billion on a cap basis,” Mock said, “and by $900 million on a cash cost basis, both at the midpoint of our projection.”
Moderna chalked up its struggles to a number of macro factors but first and foremost, the decrease in COVID-19 vaccination rates in the U.S.—its largest market.
“Ultimately, the end measure is vaccinations in the U.S. That’s just shots in arms,” Mock said. “If you look at the season to date through October 24, shots in arms are down in the U.S. 30%,” he added.
Moderna has even more levers to pull on cost reductions, according to President Stephen Hoge. And on the revenue side, the company is considering expansion into other markets, particularly Europe, partnerships with other companies, and its mix of other products besides the COVID-19 vaccines.
The executives on the call had little to say on mRESVIA, the company’s RSV vaccine, which was approved in the U.S. in 2024, winning a label expansion earlier this year. The shot made $2 million in the third quarter.
Hoge highlighted the company’s mRNA-based CMV vaccine, mRNA-1647, which two weeks ago failed to hit its primary endpoint in a pivotal Phase III trial. “We still believe that there’s an opportunity for mRNA-1647,” he said, noting that despite being unable to prevent CMV infection in young women in the trial, the molecule could still find use in other settings, like preventing infections in patients undergoing bone marrow transplants.
Moderna ended the quarter with $6.6 billion in cash and investments in the bank, according to the company’s report. Revenue for the quarter was $1 billion, and Moderna narrowed its 2025 projected revenue range to between $1.6 and $2 billion.
