AR
UR
Moderna Inc on Monday announced the launch of development and testing of vaccines targeting 15 of the world's most worrisome pathogens by 2025. As per a statement issued by the US Biotechnology company, it will permanently wave its COVID-19 vaccine patents for doses meant for a number of low-income and middle-income countries.
Moderna also said it is easing the access to its messenger RNA (mRNA) technology for researchers working on new vaccines for emerging and neglected diseases. The technology will be made accessible using a program called mRNA Access.
The announcement came ahead of the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit sponsored by the UK government and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) - an international coalition established five years ago with the aim of enhancing preparedness for future disease threats.
Moderna is partnering with a number of entities on vaccines to fight some of the 15 pathogens including Chikungunya, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Dengue, Ebola, Malaria, Marburg, Lassa fever, MERS and Covid-19.
Among the many partnerships, Moderna has partnered with the US National Institutes of Health for Nipah virus vaccine as well as the Gates Foundation and International AIDS Vaccine Initiative for an HIV vaccine.
In a recent interview, Moderna President Stephen Hoge said that the company is working on establishing new partnerships as well as further boosting the existing ones.
During a virtual press briefing on Monday, Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said that the 15 viruses are known threats that have not yet been fully-addressed by leading drugmakers. He underlined the need for change in view of the ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic across the world.
"Too many lives were lost in the last few years,” Bancel added.
During the initial fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna had pledged not to enforce its vaccine patents in the emergency phase of the pandemic crisis. It further helped in the development of a vaccine manufacturing plant in Africa with the backing of the World Health Organisation (WHO). The plant was set up as part of a pilot project to provide the necessary technology to poor and middle-income countries for manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines.
Now, Moderna has affirmed to help 92 low and middle-income countries that qualify for assistance under the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) led by the GAVI vaccine alliance.
A spokesperson from the pharma also stated that Moderna will not enforce patents for COVID-19 vaccines developed in South Africa by WHO-backed Afrigen Biologics for AMC 92 low-and middle-income countries.
Earlier this week, the company also announced that it will set up a manufacturing facility in Kenya - it's first in Africa - to produce mRNA vaccines, including doses against COVID-19.
In the coming future, Moderna is working on making its technology available to academic research labs to allow them to test their own theories for vaccines against emerging and neglected diseases. Furthermore, some of these labs will be partnered with Moderna to address the 15 priority pathogens.
The program will start with a few academic labs, but the company is expecting to expand gradually with more partners. The programme will help in expanding the discovery of additional vaccines using mRNA technology.
"We want to make sure that we allow others to explore the space that frankly, we can't get to. And that's really what this is about," Hoge added.
SOURCE: Khaleej Times