Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) CEO Stephane Bancel has sold $408 million in company stock since the beginning of the pandemic — averaging roughly $3.6 million a week — as the company’s stock soared on the development and rollout of its COVID vaccine, according to reports.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech company and its French CEO weren’t widely known outside biotech circles prior to the pandemic. However, they both became breakthrough success stories as Moderna rapidly developed its two-dose COVID vaccine in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health and with taxpayer backing trough Operation Warp Speed.
Moderna’s shots are now the second most commonly used COVID vaccine in the U.S. after Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), with more than 209 million doses administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Moderna’s stock has soared 614% since first announcing on Jan. 23, 2020 that it received funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to develop a coronavirus vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization for Moderna’s vaccine in December 2020.
Moderna’s COVID vaccine remains the biotech company’s only commercially available product. The shots have made Bancel a billionaire with an estimated net worth of more than $5.3 billion in company equity alone — based on his reported holdings as of March 1 and Wednesday’s closing price — and created a windfall for investors.
The 12-year-old company, which went public in December 2018, booked its first profit last year — $12.2 billion — on $17.7 billion in COVID vaccine sales. It’s projecting a minimum of $19 billion in sales of its signature shots this year.
MRNA shares opened Thursday up $2.14, or 1.3%, to $171.50.