Mod­er­na CEO Stéphane Ban­cel out­lines a short path for emer­gency use of a coro­n­avirus vac­cine

NI­AID di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Fau­ci has left no doubts that it takes 12 to 18 months to get a new vac­cine test­ed and in com­mer­cial use, in the best of cir­cum­stances. But in times of a glob­al emer­gency — like these — maybe there’s an­oth­er, faster route to fol­low.

In an SEC fil­ing on Tues­day, Mod­er­na $MR­NA staked out a record-set­ting path­way to get­ting their mR­NA vac­cine in­to the front­line of the health­care re­sponse as ear­ly as this fall. The SEC fil­ing notes that CEO Stéphane Ban­cel told Gold­man Sachs that an emer­gency use ap­proval could al­low the vac­cine to go to health­care work­ers and cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als in a mat­ter of months — pre­sum­ably pro­vid­ed the NIH sees the safe­ty and ef­fi­ca­cy da­ta they would need from the Phase I.

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