Moderna spent $4.543 billion on R&D. Its revenue was $3.236 billion.
As COVID sales fell, Moderna kept funding its pipeline. In 2024 it spent $4.543B on R&D against $3.236B of revenue, and cash fell to $9.5B from $13.3B. A platform bet needs a deadline.
Transcript
In 2024, Moderna spent $4.543 billion on research and development. Its total revenue that year was $3.236 billion. It spent more than it earned, on purpose.
The COVID windfall was ending. Moderna's product sales fell from $18.4 billion to $6.7 billion by 2023, and it still spent $4.845 billion on R&D that year.
The choice was to harvest the dying product for cash, or keep funding the pipeline: 45 programs, nine of them late-stage. Moderna chose the pipeline. It treated the windfall as a decade of research runway.
The bill shows up in the cash. Moderna ended 2024 with $9.5 billion, down from $13.3 billion a year earlier, after a net loss of $3.56 billion. Its RSV vaccine, mRESVIA, sold $25 million all year.
By November 2025, Moderna's talk of breakeven had become up to 10% revenue growth in 2026, with the real growth pushed out to 2027-2028.
This bet is not settled, and one case cannot tell you whether to harvest or to fund. It does tell you this: when you spend a windfall on a pipeline, set the date by which the pipeline must pay, and watch the cash against it.
The records behind this video
Every figure in the video comes from this Decision Record, each with its sources.
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