Investors really want Moderna to whip up a hantavirus vaccine

Moderna is soaring on hopes that it may be able to produce a vaccine to protect against hantavirus, which has killed three people and infected at least six others on a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

The company told Bloomberg that it’s in the early stages of researching vaccines to protect against hantaviruses. The research predates the recent outbreak and has been done alongside the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Vaccine Innovation Center at Korea University College of Medicine, per Bloomberg.

The company shot up nearly 12% on Friday, and has risen another ~8% in early trading on Monday.

Hantavirus — which is passed by rodents and has a fatality rate of up to 50%, according to the World Health Organization — has brought back memories of the early COVID-19 days in 2020, when outbreaks surged on cruise ships and eventually spread across the world.

Moderna, a small biotech tapped to quickly develop a vaccine for COVID-19, would go on to sell $18.4 billion worth of vaccines in 2021 and $19.2 billion in 2022.

The company has shifted focus to its pipeline, as its main revenue driver, the COVID-19 vaccine, has seen a decline in demand. Earlier this month, Moderna reported quarterly results that beat Wall Street estimates and raised its guidance for the year, as it sees increased demand for its new vaccines outside the US.

In April, the European Commission approved Moderna’s combination vaccine for the flu and COVID-19 for adults ‌50 years and older, and the US Food and Drug Administration said in February that it would reconsider its stand-alone flu vaccine.