Moderna Inc said on Thursday it was expecting to post $18.4 billion in sales from its COVID-19 vaccine this year.

Pfizer Inc, which makes the only other vaccine authorized for emergency use in the United States so far, said earlier this month that it was expecting to record sales of about $15 billion in 2021 from the coronavirus vaccine that it makes with German partner BioNTech.

Moderna also said Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks would leave the company in late September.

Moderna on Wednesday said it was expecting to produce 700 million doses in 2021, while attempting to scale up production to as much as 1 billion doses.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva) ((manojna.kalyani@thomsonreuters.com; +91 8061822700;))