Messenger RNA specialist Moderna’s R&D spend sunk by nearly a third last year, a drop attributed in part to the wind-down of major phase 3 respiratory trials.
In 2025, Moderna spent $3.1 billion on R&D, a 31% decrease from the $4.5 billion budget (PDF) in 2024 and a further drop from the $4.8 billion spent in 2023.
The most recent decline is due to lower clinical development and manufacturing costs related to large phase 3 respiratory programs that have been wound down, according to the company, plus continued portfolio prioritization.
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As President Donald Trump’s administration has eroded federal infrastructure supporting infectious disease vaccines, Moderna has decided to move away from late-stage clinical trial investments in the space.
“We do not foresee investing in new phase 3 studies in a foreseeable futures [sic] in vaccines,” CEO Stéphane Bancel told Bloomberg TV last month.
Instead, Moderna has chosen to funnel its money into cancer programs and its norovirus vaccine development, the latter of which is currently undergoing a phase 3 study with data expected later this year.
It’s been a challenging year for the mRNA company, with the federal government cutting a $590 million contract that had been funding late-stage development of the company’s pandemic bird flu vaccine last May. The company underwent at least two layoff rounds and dumped four clinical mRNA programs later in the year.
As longtime vaccine conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has wielded his power as Department of Health and Human Services secretary to accelerate U.S. mistrust in mRNA technology, Moderna is prioritizing Europe as a significant market for respiratory virus vaccines.
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Moderna also lost Chief Medical Officer Jacqueline Miller, M.D., last month after she held the role for a little more than a year.
And of course, most recently, the FDA delivered a blow to Moderna in the form of a refusal-to-file letter for its next-gen flu vaccine. The move has deep implications for the industry, with Leerink Partners analyst Mani Foroohar, M.D., telling Fierce that he thinks “companies have found the pivot jarring, having developed drugs and clinical trials based on prior feedback.”
As for Moderna’s financial performance in 2025, the business generated $1.9 billion in revenue, which was down 42% year over year.
“2025 was a key turning point in our financial story,” Jamey Mack, Moderna’s chief financial officer, said during the company’s conference call held today. “We improved our commercial execution, exceeded our cost-reduction plan by over $1 billion and ended the year with over $2 billion more cash than our original 2025 guidance.”
In 2026, Moderna expects sales to grow to “up to” 10%, with a 50-50 mix between U.S. and international sales as opposed to last year when 62% of its revenue was generated domestically.
“We will begin selling locally manufactured products in both the U.K. and Australia in 2026, which is the largest driver of our international growth,” said Mack, who added that the guidance factors in “future potential declines in COVID vaccination rates” and assumes no revenue from its investigational flu shot or its COVID/flu combo vaccine. Both are under review in the U.K. and Australia.
