Moderna Gets Additional $472M US Award
for COVID-19 Vaccine Development
In order to support the development of Moderna’s novel coronavirus vaccine, the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has provided an additional $472 million, said the US-based drugmaker, Moderna Inc.
The American biotechnology company, Moderna gets an additional $472M US Award and said that the additional funding will support the company’s late-stage clinical development along with the expanded Phase 3 study of Moderna’s vaccine candidate.
When the company’s experimental vaccine was in an early-stage trial conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. federal agency that funds disease-fighting technology provided $483 million to Moderna in April.
In a press release, Stéphane Bancel, the company’s Chief Executive Officer said, “We are encouraged by the phase 1 data and believe that Moderna’s mRNA vaccine may help in solving the COVID-19, novel coronavirus pandemic and also aid in excluding outbreaks in the future.”
Moderna’s experimental vaccine’s total funding is now around $955 million, provided by BARDA, the first to begin human trials of a Covid-19 vaccine in the United States.
To inoculate against the coronavirus, the vaccine uses synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA). Such treatments can be developed and manufactured more quickly than traditional vaccines and can help the body immunize against a virus.
According to the company, a Phase 3 study, involving about 30,000 participants, will begin on July 27 and will be conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Moderna said it is keeping on course to be capable of delivering doses, starting in 2021, delivering around 500 million to perhaps 1 billion doses per year.
Moderna said that, in developing the vaccine, its formula used was not covered under patents owned by Arbutus Biopharma and two days later, the announcement about further funding came.
Few other drugmakers that were provided with funding from BARDA for the development of coronavirus vaccine include Britain’s AstraZeneca Plc, Novavax Inc, Pfizer Inc.
