Moderna goes AI and experiences share price rally

It has been a few years now since the word Moderna was heard, or read, several times per day and as with many periods of time in which a previously headline-dominating phenomenon subsides, the pharmaceutical giant's seemingly continuous media coverage gave way to the absolute opposite scenario in which the name has been all but forgotten among the general public.

Until recently, that is.

Moderna, which is one of North America's publicly listed pharmaceutical stalwarts, has been re-entering the news over the past few weeks after it announced that it had formed a strategic partnership with ChatGPT developer OpenAI in order to accelerate mRNA research. Just a week after announcing the partnership, the two firms expanded their collaboration to allow employees of Moderna access to enterprise-level GPTs, so that they can create customised AI GPTs on specific topics.

According to some sources, approximately 80% of Moderna employees are now using GPTs for various internal procedures, and over the past few days, Moderna's stock has been among the stocks experiencing the highest increases of value according to FXOpen pricing.

Around the time that this news was circulating via various mainstream channels, Moderna stock jumped in value. On May 1, it was trading at $111.39 according to FXOpen pricing, and the next day, concluded the trading session at a value of $125.55.

Since then, a minor bout of volatility took place, placing Moderna stock at a value of $121.26 by May 10 before it rose once again and concluded the US trading session yesterday (May 13) at $125.55.

One of the most commercially important considerations for Moderna is the method by which it conducts clinical trials, and the stringent regulation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which it must adhere to in order to conduct such trials.

In seeking such approval, which is on a per-drug basis, Moderna must provide internal information to build a case for trialing each dosage of vaccine drugs.

By using GPTs to compile and extrapolate data, it could be considered that a more efficient route to pre-approval status is achievable.

Another use case could be when approaching commercial contracts for the supply of Moderna products to healthcare systems. Contracts between pharmaceutical companies and distributors of products or healthcare providers are complex and AI may help align the requirements more efficiently.

Clearly, the two-letter acronym AI is one of this year's buzzwords, whereas it could be said that Moderna was a buzzword at the beginning of this decade, however, the collaboration of the most famous AI service and Moderna has led to stock market volatility, which is interesting at the very least.