Moderna Launches Public Health Strategy to Advance mRNA Vaccines

Moderna recently announced its global public health strategy through four initiatives to advance mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases.

In the first strategy, Moderna will expand its global public health portfolio to 15 vaccine programs targeting priority pathogens that threaten global health. The company will advance these vaccines into clinical studies by 2025.

Second, Moderna will launch its mRNA Access program to offer researchers the use of Moderna's mRNA technology to explore new vaccines against emerging or neglected infectious diseases.

The mRNA Access program will open Moderna's preclinical manufacturing capabilities and research and development expertise to global partners. The program will also allow scientists globally to explore novel vaccine designs against prototype viral families to prepare for Disease X.

In the third strategy, Moderna will expand its patent pledge to never enforce COVID-19 patients in the Gavi COVAX AMC for 92 low-and middle-income countries. And finally, Moderna's fourth strategy will focus on a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of the Republic of Kenya to establish Kenya as the location for its mRNA manufacturing facility.

Overall, will prioritize development efforts against pathogens identified as persistent global health threats, including HIV, tuberculosis (TB), malaria, neglected tropical diseases, and the priority pathogens of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

"We are dedicated to pursuing innovative vaccine solutions to address infectious diseases that pose the greatest risk to public health through collaborative research and development," said Stéphane Bancel, CEO Moderna, said in the announcement.

"Since our beginning, we have focused on developing a global health vaccine program and today, we are expanding our work to develop vaccines against priority pathogens that threaten global health and by launching our new mRNA Access program to create a community of global scientists to access our mRNA vaccine technology from anywhere in the world," Bancel continued.

Moderna's clinical portfolio currently includes vaccines targeting COVID-19, HIV, Nipah, and Zika. The company's new public health strategy will boost programs against the remaining pathogens by 2025.

In early 2020, Moderna began developing its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Eleven months later, the vaccine demonstrated clinical safety and efficacy and was FDA authorized. Since then, hundreds of millions of individuals globally have received the vaccine.