Moderna plans to develop and begin testing vaccines targeting 15 of the world's most worrisome pathogens by 2025 and will permanently wave its COVID-19 vaccine patents for shots intended for certain low- and middle-income countries.
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The US biotechnology company also says it will make its messenger RNA (mRNA) technology available to researchers working on new vaccines for emerging and neglected diseases through a program called mRNA Access.
Moderna announced its strategy on Monday ahead of the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit sponsored by the UK government and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, an international coalition set up five years ago to prepare for future disease threats.
Moderna is already collaborating with partners on vaccines against some of the 15 pathogens, which include chikungunya, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, dengue, Ebola, malaria, Marburg, Lassa fever, MERS and COVID-19.
Those collaborations included a Nipah virus vaccine with the US National Institutes of Health and an HIV vaccine with the Gates Foundation and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in an interview.
The company would either seek out new partners for the others or develop them internally, he said.
Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel told a virtual media briefing on Monday the 15 viruses were known threats that had not been addressed by many large drug makers.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed six million people worldwide and sickened millions more, had made clear that needed to change, Bancel said.
"Too many lives were lost in the last few years," he said.
Early in the COVID pandemic, Moderna pledged not to enforce its vaccine patents during the emergency phase of the health crisis.
That has allowed for development of a vaccine manufacturing plant in Africa backed by the World Health Organisation as part of a pilot project to give poor and middle-income countries the know-how to make COVID-19 vaccines.
Moderna said it would make that pledge permanent for the 92 low- and middle-income countries that qualify for assistance under the COVAX Advance Market Commitment led by the GAVI vaccine alliance.
Australian Associated Press
