Moderna gets closer to hacking COVID-19: a $27B biotech selling 0 products
Maybe she's born with it... Maybe it's $3B in funding. Moderna is a biotech company based out of Cambridge, MA (classic) that wants to hack coronavirus with its cutting edge tech. It raised $2.3B in funding, then shed its magical Unicorn cape to go public in 2018 (résumé item: Moderna had the largest biotech IPO — ever). On Monday, Moderna elevated markets with news that phase 1 trials for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate yielded positive results.
- Over 100 coronavirus vaccines are currently in development around the globe — Moderna's is among the 8 front-runners that have started human trials (including Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer).
- Moderna does things differently... Its bread and butter is mRNA, the messenger that sends protein-making instructions from our DNA to our cells (like a DM with a recipe for at-home Power Bars, except not at all).
- Instead of using a weakened virus to make vaccines, Moderna is literally re-engineering mRNA to teach our cells how to make virus-destroying antibodies. If successful, this tech could be modified to target a wide range of viruses and diseases. But...
No mRNA vaccine has ever been approved for human use... Yet. But these gene-based vaccines can be developed more quickly than OG, established ones. Moderna's ambitious plan is to have its vaccine ready for emergency use as soon as this fall. The FDA gave it permission to start the 2nd phase of testing — Moderna's aiming to be in the 3rd/final round by July.
Moderna hasn't sold a single thing yet, but it's worth $27B... Moderna's got a lot in its pipeline, but no sell-able products to show for it (yet). But its pre-product cutting-edge tech is exactly what's getting investors excited — Moderna has almost quadrupled in value this year. Now it's making an opportune sale of new stock, hoping to raise an extra $1.3B — couldn't have timed it better.