Tal Zaks

As Mod­er­na worked in over­drive to cre­ate the sec­ond Covid-19 vac­cine grant­ed emer­gency use au­tho­riza­tion by the FDA, it spent more than $1.1 mil­lion on se­cu­ri­ty for its top ex­ec­u­tives — the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of which went to keep­ing CEO Stéphane Ban­cel safe.

More than $1 mil­lion was spent on se­cu­ri­ty costs for Ban­cel in 2020, ac­cord­ing to a proxy fil­ing pub­lished this week. CMO Tal Zaks, who in Feb­ru­ary an­nounced that he will leave the com­pa­ny lat­er this year, re­ceived $143,719 for se­cu­ri­ty. The com­pa­ny al­so spent $16,380 on se­cu­ri­ty for Pres­i­dent Stephen Hoge, and $28,161 on SVP Juan An­dres.

The spend­ing in­crease ad­dressed se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns as the com­pa­ny pur­sued the de­vel­op­ment of the Covid-19 vac­cine, the re­port said.

“In re­sponse to the in­creased pro­file of our Com­pa­ny and our ex­ec­u­tives as we pur­sued the de­vel­op­ment of a vac­cine against COVID19, in 2020 the Com­pa­ny au­tho­rized the pro­vi­sion of per­son­al and home se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices to cer­tain of our NEOs,” the re­port stat­ed.

That $1 mil­lion in se­cu­ri­ty fees rounds out Ban­cel’s $13 mil­lion pay as Mod­er­na CEO. Around $9 mil­lion of that came in stock op­tions, while more than $945,000 was tot­ted up for salary and $1.9 mil­lion for a bonus.

In Ju­ly, Reuters re­port­ed that Chi­nese gov­ern­ment-linked hack­ers tar­get­ed Mod­er­na in a cy­ber­at­tack, in an at­tempt to steal da­ta. The US Jus­tice De­part­ment pub­li­cized an in­dict­ment of 2 sus­pects ac­cused of spy­ing on the US, in­clud­ing 3 un­named tar­gets in­volved in med­ical re­search to fight the virus. Mod­er­na con­firmed to Reuters that the com­pa­ny had been made aware of the sus­pect­ed hack­ing ac­tiv­i­ties by the FBI.

Chi­nese of­fi­cials have re­ject­ed the claims as base­less. Re­ports that Rus­sia al­so has tried to steal Covid-19 vac­cines and ther­a­peu­tics re­search in the US, UK and Cana­da al­so came out in Ju­ly from Britain’s Na­tion­al Cy­ber Se­cu­ri­ty Cen­tre. That re­port al­so did not spec­i­fy which groups had been tar­get­ed, but The Tele­graph re­port­ed that the teams in­volved in the As­traZeneca vac­cine had been sub­jects of the at­tack.

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.