** U.S. drugmaker Moderna MRNA.O shares up more than 4% on Monday with no obvious fresh catalyst, still it was outperforming the S&P 500 healthcare index .SPXHC by 0.4% on the day after four straight weeks of faster gains than the sector

** Monday's gain for the company, which makes vaccines, follows its advance last week of 14.7%, which included a 9.2% gain on Friday.

** On Friday Jefferies analyst Andrew Tsai, who rates the stock 'hold', wrote that similar to prior years he expects MRNA to offer a business update in Jan with a Q4 update but he foresaw 'no real surprises' saying long term "upside is predicated on having visibility to mgmt's 2028 cash breakeven guidance"

** On Thursday last week Moderna said early in the day that it would get up to $54.3 million in funding from a global coalition to support late-stage development of its experimental bird flu vaccine

** In all, MRNA has risen more than 55% since Nov 20 when it said that it had secured a five-year term loan facility for up to $1.5 bln from Ares Management Credit Funds and that it was targeting up to 10% revenue growth next year

** However, despite recent gains the stock is still down ~15% YTD after reaching its peak for the year so far in late May as investors have been concerned about a shake-up of U.S. support for bird flu vaccines

** Also last week The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has no plans to put a "black box" warning on COVID-19 vaccines, according to a Bloomberg News report top FDA official Marty Makary

** Stock last traded at $35.25 vs YTD peak of $48.92 and Wall Street's median PT of $28, as per LSEG, which shows 25 analyst ratings: 4 'buy,' 17 'hold' 3 'sell' and 1 'strong sell'

(Reporting by Sinead Carew)

((sinead.carew@thomsonreuters.com))