Moderna is hitting the road

Biotech’s biggest-ever IPO has a launch date: On Dec. 6, Moderna Therapeutics expects to price a $500 million offering that will value the company at about $8 billion. But before the unicorn can shed its horn and the bankers can collect their fees, Moderna has a lot of hands to shake and lunches to eat.

Yesterday began Moderna’s roadshow, the requisite parade of meetings with investors and analysts in which a company hoping to IPO explains why it deserves a certain valuation. If you succeed and convince enough moneychangers to place orders at a certain price, the whole process churns forward. If you fail and have to take a haircut, there can be delays and even outright cancellations.

For Moderna, if everything goes according to plan, the big day will be Dec. 7, a Friday. That’s when the company expects to start actually trading, and it’s when the public market will decide whether Moderna’s industry-upending promise is worth the multibillion-dollar figure its private backers claim.