[ad_1]
The Moderna chief executive said he “did not lose a single minute of sleep” following the US government’s decision to support the suspension of Covid-19 vaccine patents, a move that surprised the pharmaceutical industry.
The Biden administration said Wednesday it would support the storm renunciation of patents, a step that many in the industry had opposed, according to which the suspension of intellectual property rights dangerous precedent and risked stopping industry innovation.
But Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said he believed it “doesn’t change anything for Moderna” during a call with analysts on Thursday to discuss the company’s first-quarter results.
He argued that there were not enough production sites or skilled workers to be able to rapidly increase the supply of mRNA vaccines, such as Modern, and that they should focus efforts on expanding manufacturing in companies that already had the technology. and knowledge was the fastest and most effective way to supply the world with mRNA funnels.
“There is no inactive mRNA manufacturing capacity in the world. This is a new technology, you can’t hire people who know how to make mRNA; these people don’t exist, ”Bancel said.
He added that the patent exemption “will not help supply more mRNA vaccines to the world faster in 2021 and 2022,” the most crucial period of the pandemic.
“If you start today, you have to start hiring people. These vaccines do not fall from the sky, “Bancel told the FT US Pharma and Biotech Summit on Thursday.” There is no mRNA industry. . . When we hire people who come from traditional pharmaceuticals, we have to train them in the art of mRNA ”.
The Modern and BioNTech / Pfizer spikes are made with MRNA, a sequence of genetic code that instructs the body’s immune system to fight infection. The technology had never been used before in a vaccine. In contrast, the Johnson & Johnson and Oxford / AstraZeneca features use a adenovirus to administer the vaccine to the body.
Morgan Stanley analysts said they “see no significant practical implications” of the waiver of intellectual property, as they believed the World Trade Organization had no power to force Modern to teach other manufacturers to do the vaccine, “suggesting that the status quo not be changed.” .
Shares of Moderna fell 10% on Thursday, despite reporting its first quarterly earnings, but had recovered at noon to trade 2% below.
The company sold Covid vaccines worth $ 1.7 billion in the first three months of the year and said it will ask U.S. health agencies for full approval of its punctures this month.
The drug maker said total revenue rose to $ 1.9 billion during the first quarter as it sold 102 million doses of its shotgun. It reported a net profit of $ 1.2 billion compared to a loss of $ 124 million in the same period last year.
Modern also said the results of its phase 2/3 vaccine trial in children 12 to 17 years old showed an effectiveness of 96%. The trial with 3,235 participants did not cause serious side effects, he said.
The results of the trial came when countries tried to expand their vaccination programs to younger age groups. The BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine was authorized for use on Wednesday, to 12- to 15-year-olds in Canada, the first country to approve a coronavirus attack for children.
Moderna is likely to benefit from the need to shoot booster to address emerging variants of the coronavirus in the coming years and Bancel emphasized the demand from booster governments. The pharmacist has expanded its capacity to manufacture up to 3 billion doses of vaccine by 2022.
A new variant has already fueled a disastrous wave of the virus India, which has registered more than 20 million cases, pushing healthcare systems to the brink of collapse.
The company said a single 50 mg booster shot in people who were already vaccinated had been shown to be effective against the original virus and variants first detected in South Africa and Brazil.
Bancel told the FT that governments that had purchased doses of adenovirus-based vaccines were looking to use mRNA vaccines for boosters, as mRNA strokes had proven to be more effective.
Modern said it had so far signed vaccine contracts for a total revenue of $ 19.2 billion projected for 2021 and that it plans to deliver doses of up to $ 250 million in the second quarter.
Switzerland on Thursday became the last country to request reinforcements from Moderna, as it signed up for a dose of 7 million in 2022 and an option for additional doses of 7 million to be delivered at least in the first quarter of 2023. .
[ad_2]
Source link
