Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) climbed more than 2% in premarket trading on Friday after Nasdaq announced the biotech will join the Nasdaq-100 index before the open on October 9, replacing Warner Bros. Discovery. The inclusion is expected to generate fresh demand from index-tracking funds, adding a mechanical bid to a stock that has already posted extraordinary gains in 2026.
The Nasdaq-100 tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq and is followed by more than 200 investment products with roughly $800 billion in assets globally. For Moderna, that means passive managers benchmarked to the index may need to buy shares simply because the company is entering the benchmark, regardless of their view on its fundamentals.
That dynamic helps explain Friday's premarket move, even though the underlying debate about Moderna's valuation has not shifted overnight. Index inclusion can support near-term demand, but it does not resolve what the business is ultimately worth once rebalancing flows have run their course.
A spectacular rally meets a skeptical analyst
Moderna's 2026 rally has been remarkable, with the stock up more than 500% and its narrative shifting from a post-pandemic recovery play to an oncology bet. The catalyst has been intismeran, a personalized cancer vaccine developed with Merck.
Yet Wall Street is divided. Citi downgraded Moderna to Sell from Neutral on September 30, while raising its price target to $80 from $60. Analyst Geoff Meacham argued the valuation is difficult to justify. "We struggle to justify the valuation through public-company comparisons or pipeline NPV," Meacham wrote, according to Investing.com.
Citi noted that Moderna's market value has approached Regeneron's despite lower expected revenue and earnings. Even assuming a 100% probability of success for intismeran's leading programs, the bank said it could support only about $100 per share. Citi also estimated that a share price near $200 would require roughly $26 billion in annual oncology sales, with about half going to Moderna and the rest to partner Merck — nearly seven times Citi's own forecast.
Bulls point to Phase 3 success
The bull case rests on the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial. Moderna and Merck reported that intismeran combined with Keytruda met its primary recurrence-free-survival endpoint and a key secondary endpoint in high-risk melanoma. The result gave investors their strongest evidence yet that Moderna's mRNA platform can produce a commercial franchise beyond infectious-disease vaccines.
William Blair analyst Myles Minter upgraded Moderna to Outperform after the data, saying the company now has "a clear line of sight to revenue diversification from the COVID business." That view directly counters Citi's caution.
Still, the debate is far from settled. Rothschild & Co Redburn analyst Simon Baker called the Phase 3 result "undoubtedly good" but argued the share-price reaction was overexuberant, since melanoma success does not prove Moderna can replicate it across other tumor types.
Two competing frameworks have emerged. One treats intismeran as the foundation of a broad oncology platform; the other sees a single clinical win being extrapolated too aggressively. Nasdaq-100 inclusion now adds another layer: passive funds may soon have little choice but to own Moderna, while fundamental investors remain split over how much cancer-vaccine success is already reflected in the price.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
