WASHINGTON - Moderna has long been a darling of investors but it wasn't until the coronavirus pandemic came along that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company could prove the value of its new vaccine technology and mint some new billionaires.
Frenchman Stephane Bancel, 48, who has served as chief executive officer of Moderna since 2011, became a billionaire in April, when the very preliminary results of clinical trials on a Covid-19 vaccine were first published. In 2018, Moderna set a record for an initial public offering by a biotech firm, raising more than US$600 million.
'Warrior' Despite its promise, the company has not yet brought a product to market and the Covid-19 vaccine still needs the approval of health authorities before it can be shipped. One of Moderna's first projects was to try to develop targeted vaccines against various types of cancer, research which is still underway.
"You want to be the guy who's going to fail them?" Mr Bancel asked in a 2016 interview with the website Stat about working conditions at Moderna."I don't."Moderna, which employs more than 1,000 people, about half at a factory in Massachusetts, does not have the production facilities needed to make the huge amounts of vaccine that will be needed around the world.