Compare moats
Up to three covered companies, band by band. Every call is a curated editorial judgment, never a disclosed figure — and every band carries its cited basis.
| Moderna | Applied Digital | Pfizer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow The FY2025 10-K supports a real but bounded advantage. The Competition section says the company believes "mRNA as a medicine coupled with our capabilities across mRNA technology, drug discovery, development and manufacturing provide us with a competitive advantage," and the Intellectual Property section backs that with more than 260 issued or allowed U.S. patents or applications, more than 140 granted or allowed outside the U.S., 485 pending applications, and latest-to-expire granted patents on all three approved products projected to 2041 in the U.S. and 2036 in Europe. Item 1A cuts the band down from wide: it opens the competition risk with "The vaccine market, and pharmaceutical market more generally, is intensely competitive," says Moderna "ha[s] been excluded from selling our COVID vaccines in many European markets due to a competitor's contract with the European Commission, which does not lapse until year-end 2026," that in RSV it "entered a market already occupied by two larger competitors," and that rivals "have exploited and may in the future exploit their greater size, infrastructure, resources and experience." The same section reports net losses of $2.8 billion in 2025 and $3.6 billion in 2024 against 2025 total revenue of $1.9 billion. | none The FY2026 10-K (filed 2026-07-29) shows contracted revenue, not a demonstrated competitive edge. About 1,410 MW is leased under 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable base terms worth about $36.2 billion, but only about 100 MW of the roughly 1.5 GW that is contracted and either operating or under construction was operating and earning revenue at May 31, 2026, and Item 1A says "lessees may have the right to terminate applicable leases if there are significant delays in construction." Item 1A also concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time," and the Competition section names 13 power-advantaged developers the company competes with. Signed leases give revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable advantage. | eroding The FY2025 10-K publishes the expiry schedule of its own protection. The Patents table dates the basic U.S. product patent on Eliquis ($7,961 million of 2025 revenue) to 2027, the Prevnar family's Prevnar 13 ($6,494 million for the family) to 2026, the Vyndaqel family ($6,380 million) to 2026 with a 2028 extension only pending, Ibrance ($4,122 million) to 2027, Xtandi ($2,194 million) to 2027 and Xeljanz ($1,087 million) to 2026 - against Total revenues of $62,579 million. The filing then states it anticipates 'a significant reduction of revenue from patent-based or regulatory exclusivity expiries in 2026 through 2030 as several of our in-line products experience these expirations, with the rate of the reduction of revenues from patent-based or regulatory exclusivity expiries expected to significantly accelerate over the next few years', and puts the 2026 instalment at $1.5 billion. A protection whose end dates the issuer tabulates product by product, and whose revenue effect it forecasts as accelerating, is being consumed on a clock it has already disclosed. |
| Moat type | intangibles ip The filing locates the advantage in a patent and know-how estate, not in customer lock-in or cost. Intellectual Property describes "an expansive, multi-layered IP estate" whose platform claims cover mRNA chemistry, sequence optimization, engineering elements, LNP delivery systems and "innovative processes for the manufacture and analysis of mRNA drug substance and formulated drug product," alongside "substantial proprietary know-how associated with related manufacturing processes" and a trademark portfolio of at least 1,400 registrations. Nothing in the filing claims switching costs or a cost advantage; Item 1A says the opposite, that competitors leverage "larger supply chains and greater purchasing power." | none The 10-K claims three advantages: power-advantaged sites (it believes securing power and interconnection ahead of demand is 'the principal constraint on new HPC capacity and a core differentiator for us from many of our competitors'), a standardized 'franchise-style' design, and hyperscaler master service and master telecom service agreements 'that are difficult to obtain.' The filing does not show any of them to be durable. Its Competition section says competition 'centers on securing and developing sites with access to large-scale, reliable, and cost-competitive power and interconnection' and names 13 power-advantaged developers going after the same leases, and Item 1A concedes it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases are take-or-pay and non-cancellable, so a tenant leaving for convenience owes 'the full remaining contractual value,' but that is contractual lock-in on each lease rather than a moat source, so no moat type is assigned. | intangibles ip The filing locates the protection in the patent estate, not anywhere else. The Patents and Other Intellectual Property Rights section tabulates 'the patent rights we consider most significant in relation to our business as a whole, together with the year in which the basic product patent expires', and states that once protection is lost 'we typically lose market exclusivity on these products, and generic and biosimilar pharmaceutical manufacturers generally produce identical or highly similar products and sell them for a lower price.' The Competition section names patents as the thing rivals attack: 'several of our competitors operate without large R&D expenses and make a regular practice of challenging our product patents before their expiration', and 'Generic pharmaceutical manufacturers pose one of the biggest competitive challenges to our branded small molecule products because they can market a competing version of our product after the expiration or loss of our patent protection.' No network, switching cost or cost-curve advantage is claimed anywhere in the section. |
| Leadership | co leader The Business section opens with the company's own claim that "Moderna is a pioneer and leader in the field of mRNA medicine." The Competition section frames the commercial reality more narrowly as a contest against a small named set: "We largely compete against Pfizer and BioNTech for sales of our COVID vaccines, whose vaccine is also based on mRNA technology. We also compete against other vaccines, including Sanofi and Novavax's." It does not claim a rank anywhere, and it places Moderna behind in the other approved category: in RSV "we compete against Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, who entered the U.S. market prior to us, and our RSV sales have been minimal to date." | behind The 10-K makes no leadership claim and gives no ranking or share figure. Item 1A concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time" and that some rivals have "substantially greater liquidity and financial resources than we do." Its Competition section places APLD against established operators (Digital Realty, Equinix), hyperscalers that build their own capacity, independent developers and 13 named power-advantaged developers (IREN, Cipher Digital, TeraWulf, Hut 8, Riot, CleanSpark, HIVE, Core Scientific, Bitdeer, Galaxy Digital, Fermi, Keel Infrastructure, MARA). | co leader The 2026 Pharma 50 (Drug Discovery & Development, published 31 March 2026, ranking pharmaceutical revenue only) places Pfizer third at $62.58 billion of FY2025 revenue inside a five-company band that runs from Johnson & Johnson's Innovative Medicine at $60.40 billion to Eli Lilly's $65.18 billion, with Merck & Co. at $65.01 billion and AbbVie at $61.16 billion in between - scale-equal to its nearest peers rather than ahead of them. The same piece attributes the top slot to Lilly's tirzepatide franchise, which it puts at $36.5 billion combined and says passed Keytruda as the world's best-selling drug; Pfizer's 10-K names no comparable single franchise, discloses no market-share position for any product, and concedes in Item 1A that 'some of our competitors may have competitive, technical or other advantages over us' and that it faces 'an increasing number of potential competitors worldwide, including from China, that have expanded R&D capabilities.' |
| Pricing power | weak Item 1A states that "certain U.S. private vaccine market practices, including regarding discounts, rebates and returns, may cause us to realize significantly lower revenues than list prices," and that "in some instances, our competitors have been able to offer more attractive terms than we can, and they may continue to do so in the future." On the flu candidate it says that in a well-developed market Moderna "may need to offer more favorable terms to gain market share (which we may be unable to do), which may negatively impact our profitability." The Commercial section adds that its markets are "characterized, particularly in the U.S. (our largest market), by a fragmented end customer base, unpredictability in orders and seasonality of deliveries." | weak Item 1A says "Due to the limited number of hyperscalers, we expect that a limited number of customers will continue to account for a high percentage of our revenue for the foreseeable future," and that if customers' equipment usage declines or they discontinue use of its facilities, APLD "may be compelled to lower our lease prices in some instances or risk losing a significant customer." One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. Take-or-pay, non-cancellable terms protect contracted revenue over the base term, and Note 19 reports a $39.1M HPC Hosting segment profit on $385.3M of segment revenue in FY2026, but those terms are agreed with a small group of concentrated buyers. | weak Price is the lever the filing shows moving against it. CMS selected Eliquis - which the 10-K says 'accounted for 13% of Total revenues in 2025' - for the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, and 'its government-set Maximum Fair Price became effective January 1, 2026', with Ibrance and Xtandi following in 2027 and Xeljanz in 2028. In September 2025 Pfizer 'voluntarily agreed' with the U.S. administration to make certain U.S. prices 'more comparable to those in other developed countries' and to sell through the TrumpRx.gov platform 'at significant discounts to current retail prices'. Gross-to-net product revenue deductions rose to $36,374 million in 2025 from $30,048 million in 2023 while Total revenues fell to $62,579 million, and the IRA Medicare Part D Redesign alone 'negatively impacted our 2025 revenues by approximately $1 billion'. Lower U.S. net price is named as a drag on Vyndaqel, Ibrance, Xeljanz, Nurtec ODT and Lorbrena; every 2025 growth line the filing explains is attributed to demand, patient share or launch uptake, none to price. Cost of sales at 25.7% of revenues shows the manufactured margin is intact - what is not intact is the ability to set the price. |
| Summary | Moderna's 10-K rests its competitive case on the mRNA platform and the IP wrapped around it: the company states it believes its capabilities "across mRNA technology, drug discovery, development and manufacturing" differentiate it, and reports more than 260 issued or allowed U.S. patents or applications, more than 140 granted or allowed abroad, 485 pending applications, and granted patents on Spikevax, mNEXSPIKE and mRESVIA projected to expire in 2041 (U.S.) and 2036 (Europe), plus trade secrets and manufacturing know-how it calls substantial. The filing is equally direct about the limits: the principal COVID rival's vaccine "is also based on mRNA technology"; a competitor's European Commission contract keeps Moderna out of many European COVID markets until year-end 2026; RSV sales are "minimal to date" behind Pfizer and GSK; and the risk factors warn that "the mRNA medicines field is growing rapidly, with increased competitive pressure from large and more established pharmaceutical companies." What is durable is science and plant rather than commercial position: Moderna bought and operates the Norwood (MTC) campus, completed a Marlborough site purpose-built for intismeran autogene that began shipping patient batches in September 2025, and runs UK, Canada and Australia facilities that were fully licensed in 2025, each government having entered a multi-year commitment to purchase mRNA products from the company. | Applied Digital designs, builds and operates purpose-built, liquid-cooled HPC data centers, which it calls 'AI factories', and leases the capacity to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. At May 31, 2026 its 10-K lists five campuses (Polaris Forge 1-3 and Delta Forge 1-2) with about 1,410 MW contracted under roughly 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable leases worth about $36.2 billion over the base terms. The filing claims three sources of advantage: it controls power-advantaged sites, it uses a standardized 'franchise-style' design built to deliver about 150 MW in about 14 to 18 months, and it holds hyperscaler master agreements that are 'difficult to obtain.' The same document shows how early the company is. About 100 MW was operating and earning revenue. One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. It competes with Digital Realty, Equinix, hyperscalers that build their own capacity and 13 named power-advantaged developers, and it concedes that it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases give long-dated revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable competitive advantage. | Two clocks run in opposite directions inside the same company. The revenue base is near-dated: Eliquis, the Prevnar family, the Vyndaqel family, Ibrance, Xtandi and Xeljanz all carry U.S. basic product patents expiring 2026 or 2027 in the 10-K's own table, and the filing warns the resulting revenue loss will 'significantly accelerate over the next few years'. The replacement book is later-dated - Padcev and Lorbrena to 2033, Nurtec ODT and Litfulo to 2034, Prevnar 20 to 2035, Abrysvo, Cibinqo and Elrexfio to 2036, Comirnaty and Paxlovid to 2041 - but in 2025 it was still much smaller, and the two products with the longest patent runway are the two the filing says are shrinking fastest (Comirnaty down 20% and Paxlovid down 59% operationally). The 10-K's answer is purchased pipeline rather than defended position: it cites the Seagen and Metsera acquisitions as 'significant investments in obesity and oncology, respectively, which are extremely competitive therapeutic areas', while R&D expense itself fell 4% to $10,437 million. Excluding Comirnaty and Paxlovid the remaining business grew 6% operationally in 2025, which is the honest measure of what is being rebuilt underneath the expiries. A third pressure sits on top of the patent clock and is independent of it: government price-setting now reaches the largest product in the book. |
| Chain position | A vertically integrated mRNA developer-manufacturer that sits between upstream licensors and government or retail buyers: it in-licenses the Penn modified-mRNA patents non-exclusively through Cellscript and mRNA RiboTherapeutics at low-single-digit royalties and NIAID's prefusion coronavirus spike and prefusion RSV F patents, manufactures drug substance at the owned Norwood MTC campus and individualized therapy at Marlborough, runs Moderna-built plants in the UK, Canada and Australia against multi-year government purchase commitments, and relies on CMOs for critical raw material production and fill-finish. | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Demand side of the AI chain, not a supplier into it. The 10-K lists 'Scale AI across our business' as one of four 2026 key priorities and describes 'expanding automation, data-driven decision making, and enterprise AI solutions', crediting 'enhanced digital enablement, including automation and AI' for part of the savings in its cost-realignment and R&D-simplification programs. It describes no AI model, tool or platform that Pfizer sells. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.05 at weight 0.20 · swarm bearish Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.17 at weight 0.20 · swarm bearish Editorial prior, not backtested. |