Moderna Achieves a Tesla-Like Aura With Investors

There’s no real precedent in the drug industry for the rapid rise of Moderna Inc. on the back of its highly effective Covid-19 vaccine. The company’s market value soared from $6 billion to a peak of almost $200 billion in 19 months, exceeding century-old Big Pharma stalwarts. Last month, it entered the S&P 500 Index.

It takes a leap to a completely different industry to find a good comparison. Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. spent much of the past 19 months on a similar run, rising from less than $100 billion to a peak of more than $800 billion, joining the S&P 500 along the way and leaving other automakers in the dust (it’s valued at about $700 billion today). Neither company’s valuation makes much sense by any sort of conventional analysis. But with Moderna now being touted as the “Tesla of biotech,” clearly there is no choice but to actually examine what could possibly unite a drug developer with a manufacturer of electric cars.