May 5, 2022: -Moderna sold $5.9 billion of its Covid vaccine in the first quarter, blowing out revenue and profit expectations.

On Wednesday, the biotech shares of the company soared by over 7% in premarket trading.

Moderna is maintaining its full-year guidance of $21 billion in Covid vaccine sales. The sales guidance is based on signed agreements with governments and does not include orders from the U.S., so the final number could come in higher.

Moderna’s first-quarter vaccine sales tripled for the same previous year when it reported $1.7 billion in sales right after the doses first rolled out. The Covid vaccine for adults ages 18 and over, Spikevax, is the company’s only commercially available product.

Moderna reported $3.66 billion in net income for the quarter, a threefold increase more than the $1.2 billion it said in the same period last year.

CEO Stephane Bancel said he expects Moderna to book even stronger vaccine sales in the second half of the year as governments order more shots to prepare for fall vaccination campaigns. Bancel said Moderna expects to receive regulatory approval in late summer for a redesigned vaccine that targets the mutations on the omicron variant in addition to the original strain that emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019.

“The virus is mutating to become more and more infectious, and there’s waning immunity,” Bancel told CNBC in an interview on Squawk Box. “It will be essential to boost people in the fall with a better-adapted vaccine, which we’re working towards.”

The present vaccines targetting the Wuhan strain are less effective at preventing mild illness as highly mutated variants such as omicron evade the antibodies that block infections. However, the shots still provide strong protection against severe disease and death.

The Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee will meet on June 28 to discuss whether the U.S. needs to adopt a redesigned vaccine that targets mutations in the virus.