Moderna (MRNA) CEO Stéphane Bancel partly attributed to the US The company’s rapid development of a candidate for the COVID-19 vaccine, and told Yahoo Finance on Monday that it could not have participated in such a solid essay without the support of the federal government.
The top candidate for the US coronavirus vaccine, one of several companies that are part of Operation Warp Speed, entered Phase 3 trials on Monday, hoping to get results in October or November. Bancel cited the additional $ 472 million, bringing total financing up to $ 955 million, as an integral part of the accelerated momentum.
“At the time we were thinking of a trial of 10,000 participants,” Bancel said of the initial plan in April, adding that discussions with government investigators resulted in a trial of 30,000 participants.
Over the weekend, the company announced an additional round of funding from the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a department of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Moderna announced that the first patient was dosed in Georgia with 100 micrograms of the candidate vaccine early Monday morning, but uncertainty persists as the path of the outbreak determines how an effective vaccine is monitored and studied.
As the coronavirus tightens its grip on the world, the stakes are high for Moderna, and possible COVID-19 treatment. The vaccine industry is generally not as profitable as therapies, and a treatment that falls short could be a devastating blow to a relatively young company.
Moderna, in association with Europe-based Lonza, is producing 500 million doses at risk for the year, and is increasing to potentially reach 1 billion doses by 2021.
The mRNA vaccine technology the company is using has not yet been tested on the market, and production is more complex than traditional vaccines. The US Food and Drug Administration has established a 50% efficacy bar for any vaccine, and will have to determine the potential of the technology compared to traditional vaccines.
If successful, a vaccine will actually be the company’s first 10-year product on the market. Despite significant taxpayer funding, as well as investors increasing their market capitalization to $ 29 billion, the new biotech company will need to make a profit, and consider it in its pricing, Bancel said.
Exactly how much a vaccine will cost and who will ultimately cover it, remains a big problem in the process.
“We have to make profit from the first product [we sell]”Bancel told Yahoo Finance.” We have invested $ 2 billion of our share capital since we started the company. We need to get a return. We are very aware that this is a pandemic and we must be very responsible for how we value a product. “
The company has said they will use the prices of previous vaccines as a benchmark and that they will offer discounts during the pandemic phase.
On another topic, questions have been raised about company executives selling shares after the positive results of the first trials. That pattern that has been seen in other recently popular biotechnologies.
Bancel reiterated that sales were established in December 2018 after the company went public, but declined to address when or if the plans had since been modified. The company is in a period of silence before second-quarter earnings on August 5.
“What I can say is that 99% of my wealth is tied to Moderna’s shares, so I am very much aligned with any of our shareholders,” said Bancel. “I had more shares on June 13 than I had on January 1. If any investor is concerned about not aligning with me, they should look at the numbers.”
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