This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive . To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter .

Dive Brief:

Dive Insight:

Vaccine makers faced a difficult year in 2024, as demand for both COVID and RSV shots ebbed compared to 2023.

According to Jefferies analyst Michael Yee, COVID vaccinations involving Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax products dropped by 8% at the end of 2024 versus the year prior. And RSV, which was targeted by Moderna as its next big market, proved more challenging than the company anticipated.

Approved in May 2024, Moderna’s shot mResvia competes with Pfizer’s Abrysvo and GSK’s Arexvy, which were both cleared in the U.S. a year earlier. But all three companies were caught off guard by updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that narrowed its prior recommendation for RSV immunization.

“We were also too optimistic about our ability to break into the market given the headwinds from a midyear approval and launch,” Bancel wrote in a Jan. 6 letter to shareholders .

In Monday’s announcement, Moderna disclosed unaudited sales of between $3 billion to $3.1 billion for 2024, lower at the high end by $400 million than its Nov. 7 guidance . MResvia contributed “minimal” sales to that total, per the company.

The company has an expansive pipeline that it expects will deliver an increasing cadence of approvals. Still, investors appear to be remaining cautious of Moderna’s future success.

Closely watched is a vaccine for cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a virus that can cause birth defects, in late-stage testing. However, the shot didn’t clear an early bar for declaring success in a Phase 3 study, reinforcing “doubts on the study’s odds of success,” Mani Foroohar wrote in a Leerink note to clients Monday. Final efficacy data is expected this year.