French pres­i­dent names Stéphane Ban­cel a Cheva­lier for Mod­er­na's Covid tri­umph

Mod­er­na’s rapid fire de­vel­op­ment of its huge­ly suc­cess­ful mR­NA vac­cine for Covid saved lives, changed the vac­cine in­dus­try for­ev­er and made CEO Stéphane Ban­cel a bil­lion­aire. But per­haps the sweet­est re­ward came this week, when Ban­cel was named a Cheva­lier — ba­si­cal­ly knight­ed — by the pres­i­dent of France.

Pres­ti­gious Eu­ro­pean ti­tles like this are rare in bio­phar­ma, but not un­known, as As­traZeneca’s Mene Pan­ga­los could tell you af­ter be­ing knight­ed by the Queen, named on the hon­ors list in 2020 for his con­tri­bu­tion to sci­ence.

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