Moderna announced yesterday it is expanding its public health initiatives, pledging to develop vaccines against fatal illnesses other than COVID-19.
Forbes reported that the company has committed to developing vaccines specifically against 15 high-priority targets that the World Health Organization has identified. Moderna has also committed to expanding manufacturing access to lower-waged nations.
According to the company's CEO Stephane Bancel, what they've been thinking a lot about is how to get the world better prepared to deal with the next outbreak or even pandemic.
The announcement from Moderna was made just a few hours after the Boston-based firm announced its plan to open a Kenya-based mRNA manufacturing facility.
Vaccine Against 15 Deadly Diseases
Moderna is investing up to $500 million in the facility, which will aim to produce 500 million vaccine doses each year. The firm is also working to be able to complete and package COVID-19 vaccines by early 2023 in Africa.
On top of this facility, Modern also said it not enforcing its patents against firms that manufacture versions of its COVID-19 vaccine either in or even for the 92 low- and middle-income countries that are part of the "Gavi COVAX Advanced Market Commitment," as specified in as similar Mandurah Mail report.
Among the 15 high-priority disease targets, vaccine formulation for HIV, Ebola, Zika and Nipah is already ongoing. COVID-19 is another disease on the list, and Moderna is presently working on a booster dose specific to the Omicron variant, for its existing vaccine, and a combination COVID-influenza vaccine.
Completing the list of diseases are Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus disease, Chikungunya virus, Dengue, Lassa fever, Malaria, MERS, Thrombocytopenia syndrome, Rift Valley fever, and Tuberculosis.
Bancel explained, the firm will also develop combination vaccines where a single dose could immunize against multiple illnesses for areas where that makes sense.
Sample Vaccines for Preclinical Research
To help in the development of vaccines against these and other illnesses, Moderna announced too that it has started a program to work together with government and academic researchers on a program dubbed mRNA Access.
Those taking part in this program will be able to develop vaccine samples with Moderna, which has committed to utilizing its manufacturing facilities to produce doses of the sample vaccines for preclinical studies.
Bancel explained, "The order comes to our plant in Massachusetts," in a large room of robots where they will make the vaccine with exactly the same technology as the vaccine against COVID-19.
Then, he continued, they "FedEx back to those laboratories on the other side of the world" the said vaccines designed on the computer. After the completion of a preclinical study on such prototypes, Bancel said Moderna will provide too, biological material for clinical research, as well.
mRNA Access Program
On top of the work the Moderna is doing on current vaccines, the company said it has also started work to develop vaccines for the presently unknown diseases that could cause fatal outbreaks or even pandemics by developing sample vaccines for the types of diseases possible to develop along the same line as COVID-19 or even worse.
This is part of the biotech firm's motivation towards developing its mRNA Access program. Bancel said, having such vaccines in hand could mean cutting months off "development time during an emergency."
There is a need to work with the best minds in the world who know viruses in order to develop vaccines, he added and continued, if, "God forbid," an outbreak or even a pandemic begins, "we can go faster than we went last time."
Report about Moderna's latest announcement is shown on ANC 24/7's YouTube video below:
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