Moderna Inc. MRNA shares dove more than 5% in after-hours trading Thursday, after the company announced that a study into a flu vaccine candidate failed to reach one of its goals. The company said that the candidate accomplished superiority in two goals and non-inferiority in another, but did not reach the non-inferiority standard on the other goal of the study. “While we did not achieve non-inferiority for the Influenza B strains which are more frequent in younger populations, we have already updated the vaccine that we believe could improve immune responses against Influenza B and will seek to quickly confirm those improvements in an upcoming clinical study thanks to the agility of our mRNA platform,” Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in a statement. Moderna shares are up 13.5% in the past 12 months, as the S&P 500 index SPX has declined 7.3%.
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