原文标题：
Moderna Warns New Waves of Covid-19 Are Coming
Moderna 警告新一波 Covid-19 即将到来
原文连结：
https://reurl.cc/zezERy
发布时间：
Updated May 28, 2021 9:03 am ET / Original May 28, 2021 8:17 am ET
原文内容：
Moderna scientists and executives laid out their plans to combat new strains
of the virus that causes Covid-19 at a virtual investor event on Thursday,
saying that new waves of the epidemic are on their way.
“As the virus spreads, it is rapidly mutating,” the company’s chief
scientific officer, Melissa Moore, said on the call. “Some of these new
viral strains appear to be even more transmissible than the original strain…
We already know that some of these new strains are less susceptible to
neutralization by our current vaccine.”
The company said that it tests new variants in the lab against its vaccines,
and is “constantly” making and testing new versions of its vaccine. But it
warned that the process is not instantaneous, and that the company’s agility
is limited by the complexity of the work.
“The shortest time from the detection of a variant of concern to preclinical
immunogenicity readout against a panel of pseudoviruses is approximately 2 to
3 months,” said Guillaume Stewat-Jones, a Moderna (ticker: MRNA) scientist
who works as associate director of antigen design and selection on their
infectious disease team. “And new viral variants are coming — emerging
constantly in real time.”
The company offered an overview of a range of its scientific programs in the
presentation, including discussions on the engineering of its messenger RNA
and the performance of the lipid nanoparticles that enclose the messenger RNA
particles.
Analyst questions at the end of the call, however, focused almost entirely on
its Covid-19 vaccines. That is another sign of the importance the vaccine to
the current valuation of Moderna (ticker: MRNA) shares, as SVB Leerink
analyst Mani Foroohar wrote in a note out Thursday.
In a separate note, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee wrote that the presentation
demonstrated Moderna’s leadership in messenger RNA-based therapeutics.
“[Management] is investing in engineering to ensure they have ‘
differentiated’ mRNA constructs… and this will be a key ‘moat’ to just
anyone being able to ‘do mRNA,’” Yee wrote.
Moderna shares climbed 2.3% on Thursday, and were down 0.4% on Friday.
Barron’s argued in a feature in late April that Moderna shares had room to
climb, and that Wall Street’s worries over its market value, which at that
time was $67 billion and is now $70.5 billion, were overblown.
Foroohar and Yee are more cautious. Foroohar has an Underperform rating on
Moderna, at a target price of $83, while Yee has a Hold rating and a target
price of $170. Moderna closed at $179.54 on Thursday, and is up 71.9% so far
this year, and more than 220% over the past 12 months.
机翻如下：
Moderna公司的科学家和高管们在周四的一次虚拟投资者活动中阐述了他们对抗导致
Covid-19的病毒新菌株的计画，并表示新一波的疫情正在到来。
"该公司的首席科学官Melissa Moore在电话会议上说："随着病毒的传播，它正在迅速变
异。"其中一些新的病毒株似乎比原来的病毒株更具传播性......我们已经知道，这些新
的病毒株中的一些不太容易被我们目前的疫苗中和。
该公司说，它在实验室中针对其疫苗测试新的变种，并 "不断" 制造和测试其疫苗的新版
本。但它警告说，这个过程不是即时的，而且公司的敏捷性受到工作复杂性的限制。
Moderna（股票代码：MRNA）的科学家Guillaume Stewat-Jones说："从检测到一个令人关
注的变体到针对一组假病毒的临床前免疫原性读出，最短的时间大约是2到3个月，"他在
传染病团队中担任抗原设计和选择副主任。"而且新的病毒变体正在出现