Messenger RNA, the spearhead of the fight against future pandemics? This is the bet launched by one of the leaders of this new technology, the pharmaceutical laboratory Moderna. The American biotech, which distinguished itself during the health crisis by developing, in less than a year, one of the very first vaccines against Covid-19, unveiled, on Tuesday March 8, an ambitious strategy to counter the next infectious threats. The company plans to start some fifteen programs by 2025 to develop messenger RNA vaccines targeting pathogens identified as the greatest global public health risks.
The pharmaceutical laboratory is thus responding to the call from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), the main international foundation supporting research in vaccinology, who wish to strengthen the global arsenal against infectious diseases. “Pandemics are unpredictable and, as we have unfortunately seen with Covid, they can be devastating. That’s why we need to be better equipped to deal with it. We don’t necessarily see it in our northern countries, but there are a multitude of viruses that are a problem today. Zika, for example, was a disaster for many families in Latin America, just like Ebola in Africa”entrust to World Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna.
These last two viruses are also among the fifteen pathogens targeted by the pharmaceutical company, alongside HIV, malaria, chikungunya, dengue fever, tuberculosis, Lassa fever, and even MERS- CoV, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. Moderna does not start entirely from scratch. Some of these programs are already under development within the laboratory, like the vaccine against HIV, which has just started a phase 1 trial, or those on the Nipah and Zika viruses (currently in phase 2).
Partnerships
Concretely, biotech is committed to accelerating efforts on these fifteen vaccines to move them, within three years, from the research stage to the phase 1 clinical trial stage. A decisive step, according to Mr. Bancel . “This clinical phase is very important, because it provides essential data on the dose needed for a vaccine to be effective. If we have this information, we can go much faster. For example, we had no idea of the dose needed for a coronavirus at the start of the epidemic. If we had known, we could have launched our vaccine in September 2020 rather than December. Imagine how many more lives we could have saved”he explains.
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