Soon after a new coronavirus began spreading around the world, little-known vaccine developer
That vaccine is now one of the pillars of the
The Associated Press spoke with company president Dr.
Q: WILL COVID-19 BOOSTER SHOTS BE NEEDED IN THE FUTURE?
A: I believe that there’s going to be a chronic booster need. I definitely think they’re prudent to plan for. None of us want to be in a situation next November where we have to go into another lockdown. We’ve been updating our vaccine to make sure it boosts you back up. That’s the variant booster that we’re going to have available in the fourth quarter.
Q: HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO DEVELOP NEW VACCINES TO FIGHT VARIANTS?
A: With the first version of the vaccine, we did it in about five months, but we had to do the large clinical trials. We won’t have to do that now. For a booster targeting variants, we could do it in about three months.
Q: WHAT MAKES MESSENGER RNA SO USEFUL?
A: Messenger RNA is really just an instruction manual. It’s no longer a medicine that somebody made. It’s instructions to your body. We can put anything we want into that manual to tell it what to make, such as the spike protein on the COVID-19 virus. If you want to change a paragraph, you just cut and paste.
Q: WHAT ELSE CAN MRNA TREAT?
A: There’s no disease where we shouldn’t be able to eventually have a medicine.
Q: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?
(Vaccines for) viruses like influenza and cytomegaloviruses and other viruses that are hard to go after, like HIV. Half of our pipeline is in therapeutics. We have programs in cancer and heart disease.
Q: WHAT WILL MODERNA BE DOING 10 YEARS FROM NOW?
We’ll be focused on cancer, infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases. In cancer, we have a couple programs in mid-stage studies. We are trying to prevent recurrence of melanoma. We’re partnering with
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