Moderna's melanoma vaccine cut the risk of recurrence or death by 42%. The stock fell as much as 25%. Roughly $24 billion in market value vanished.
Wall Street looked at a cancer vaccine that works and filed a complaint.
The data leaked early on Oncology Central, a medical news site, around 12:30 p.m. ET. It was pulled shortly after. Too late. X accounts of unverified origin had already done the rest. Your portfolio was run by a deleted web page.
The shot, intismeran autogene, plus Merck's Keytruda, put 82% of patients at two years with no melanoma returning. Keytruda alone managed 70%. Twelve percentage points. Real humans, still alive, skin intact.
Retail traders sold it anyway.
Moderna had rallied over 500% this year, according to Reuters. Since August, it was up 290%, per Forbes. Citigroup called the valuation "unjustifiable" before the leak. Citigroup was right, which should embarrass everyone who ignored it. Nobody will be embarrassed. They never are.
BMO's Evan Seigerman called the result clinically meaningful. UBS called it a strong data set. Both called the selloff a product of inflated expectations. Translation: the drug passed. You failed.
Think about the logic. A trader buys at the top because cancer might get cured. Cancer gets cured. He sells because it got cured too slowly. Somewhere in Madrid, oncologists are preparing to present at ESMO. Somewhere in a basement, a man is refreshing a chart and cursing a melanoma trial.
Merck dropped too, a few percent at worst, because misery likes company.
The chart doesn't care about hazard ratios. It printed a lower low and moved on. I don't read press releases. The candles told me everything: a green wall, a red cliff, and a crowd that bought both.
Moderna still ended the year well up. The patients are doing better than the people who bet on them.
Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash
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