Moderna's Intismeran Seen as Potential 'Keytruda-Class' Opportunity, Analyst Turns Bullish

Moderna Inc. shares surged about 170% on Wednesday following optimistic data from its individualized cancer therapy in treating advanced skin cancer, but the stock later gave back gains.

In a pre-planned interim analysis, Merck & Co Inc. and Moderna's investigational combination therapy achieved statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in recurrence-free survival and distant metastasis-free survival compared to standard Keytruda alone.

Analyst Upgrades Moderna on Intismeran Prospects

On Wednesday, William Blair upgraded Moderna from Market Perform to Outperform.

Analyst Myles Minter adjusted Moderna's financial model to reflect an increased probability of approval for Intismeran in the adjuvant melanoma indication.

The analyst also extended Intismeran sales forecasts in the melanoma indication through 2040, projecting Intismeran sales to exceed $5.4 billion, based on a 50%/50% profit share with Merck.

William Blair assumes a wholesale acquisition cost of $475,000, reflecting pricing estimates comparable to currently approved cell-based oncology therapies.

Moderna's Intismeran Opportunities Beyond Melanoma

Beyond adjuvant melanoma, William Blair also incorporated Intismeran revenue from indications currently in pivotal studies—non-small cell lung cancer and renal cell carcinoma.

For NSCLC, Minter projects Moderna sales of approximately $10 billion by 2040, given the substantial total addressable market, while RCC contributes about $3.3 billion to Moderna after Merck profit sharing.

"Fundamentally, the company now has a multi-billion dollar peak sales opportunity in adjuvant melanoma to drive top-line growth, and further data across multiple tumor types can solidify Moderna's foothold here," analyst Minter wrote in a Thursday investor note.

William Blair believes these data largely de-risk the utility of Intismeran in combination with pembrolizumab, with a safety profile that keeps the bar for clinical adoption low.

However, the analyst noted that investor discussion will now shift to the extent to which INTerpath-001 data de-risks Intismeran in other cancer indications, and whether the product can achieve broad application like Keytruda—which generated approximately $31.7 billion in revenue for Merck in 2025.

MRNA Stock Performance: Moderna shares fell 19.89% to $139.69 at Thursday's data release.