Moderna CEO: The COVID-19 vaccine will be updated every year like the iPhone 1 dose per year
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Moderna CEO: The COVID-19 vaccine will be updated every year like the iPhone 1 dose per year
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Moderna CEO: The COVID-19 vaccine will be updated every year like the iPhone 1 dose per year
The U.S. COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna plans to launch a yearly booster shot within the next five years to combat common new coronaviruses, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), so that people do not have to keep getting vaccinated.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in an interview with CNN recently that as the new coronavirus continues to mutate, Moderna needs to constantly update the vaccine that has made it a household name in the world and strive to provide consumers with more convenient services.
“When you first get an iPhone, everything like the camera isn’t amazing, but you get a lot of stuff,” he said. “Many of us buy a new iPhone every September, get new apps and updated apps, and it’s totally It’s the same idea where you can deal with Covid-19, flu and RSV with just one dose.”
He estimates it will take “three to five years” for the new combination product to go from development to launch.
Moderna has seen phenomenal growth during the pandemic, but is now under pressure to identify the next frontier technology product.
Ancel believes the Covid-19 pandemic, which helped the company generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue and generate business in more than 70 markets around the world, could end as early as this year.
However, he noted that this does not mean the virus will go away.
“I think we’re slowly moving towards a world where all the tools are available and everyone can make their own decisions based on their risk tolerance,” he explained, adding that he believes more people will Choose to “live as normal in the presence of the virus” as they did with the flu.
However, he acknowledged that this approach will continue to vary widely, such as in immunocompromised populations, or in countries such as Japan, where mask-wearing was common even before the pandemic.
He added: “There’s always a 20 percent chance we’re going to get a really nasty variant that causes a very serious disease, and there’s a lot of it.”
Ancel said the company has more than 40 products in development. In addition to updating the annual booster, it is continuing to develop a personalized cancer vaccine, with new clinical data due later this year. If all goes well, the product could be approved in about two years, Bancel said.
The company is also exploring a potential monkeypox vaccine, “still in the lab today,” Bancel said. The World Health Organization declared the global outbreak of the disease a public health emergency of international concern last month.
As the world grappled with the Covid-19 outbreak for the first time, Moderna was one of the few major manufacturers to get a vaccine ready quickly, cutting the time from years to months. Its shares are up 434% in 2020 and 143% last year.
But now, like peers Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX), the company’s shares have fallen, falling more than 30% year to date and 64% from their all-time high a year ago.
Last week, the company revealed a second-quarter write-down of nearly $500 million, in part due to the sudden cancellation of orders for Covax, an international vaccination program in low-income countries.
That reversal, Ancel said, led to huge losses for the company, which bought new machines to fulfill those orders and, more importantly, produced Covid vaccines that were thrown in the trash.
“We ended up destroying the vaccine,” he said. “It’s really heartbreaking.”
The chief executive said he was not concerned about another slump in demand in rich countries, in part because governments have pledged to use a vaccine later this year to avoid reimposing economic lockdowns. But “in low-income countries, yes, I’m worried,” he said.
Moderna CEO: The COVID-19 vaccine will be updated every year like the iPhone 1 dose per year
(source:internet, reference only)
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