* * * UPDATE * * * 

Never let a crisis go to waste, Part II

I’m rarely saddened by a piece I leave out of an eye raising take but I missed something in Moderna’s quarterly today… because it was waaaaay down at the bottom.  As a result, I must do a part 2.

At the end of the financials and description of amazing work the company is doing, Moderna announced that the Chief Medical Officer will be leaving the company in September of 2021. Good news though… he was selling his stock at a fairly aggressive clip throughout 2020… making roughly $1,000,000 a week from the sale of options.

In late August as the stock ran up to $75, he was selling and still had 184,000 shares.  As of Mr. Zaks Feb. 21 form 4 filing, he had 0 shares the last of which he sold at $169, having received them at $12.21.

I guess when you sell out of 100% of your stock position and become worth north of $50,000,000… the company might not like your decision. I mean… what message does that send? Can you imagine the Governance challenge that would pose?

But I digress, I mean, for something with a 99.7% survival rate, they did such wonderful work for the world, if anyone deserved to get rich off a virus, it’s a pharma company! For profit health care at its finest!

Never let a crisis go to waste, Part I

Business strategy 101: tell the customer you can solve their biggest problem and make their life easier.

Consulting strategy 101: see BS 101 above, and add… but we need more people to help which leads to expanded revenue and we may never stop finding problems with your company (scope creep).

I only raise this because today Moderna… a company… announced their Q4 earnings. $571mm in revenue of which $200mm was from COVID vaccine sales. So, without COVID, they are a $1.5 billion revenue company. With COVID vaccines, they are a $20 billion revenue company.

Amazingly, their stock increased 650% over the last 12 months and their CEO owns 9% of the stock making him worth $5.5 billion (up from roughly $900mm pre-COVID). With every American lined up to take the vaccine, I wonder if we are taking it for us, or for him? Think he’s in favor of a “vaccine passport”?

Pharma 101: Implement policies that mandate your product to guarantee demand.

It’s nice to know COVID had some silver linings. That should console the 33% of Americans that are behind on their rent or mortgage.

#hottakeoftheday