Ready for retirement, Juan Andres is waving goodbye to Moderna in May
One of Moderna’s talents behind its rapid manufacturing ramp-up during the Covid-19 pandemic will retire.
Juan Andres, the company’s president of strategic partnerships and enterprise expansion, will depart Moderna in May, CEO Stéphane Bancel said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday.
Andres joined the biotech in 2017, initially heading up Moderna’s manufacturing operations before becoming chief technical operations and quality officer in 2020. Bancel said Andres did a “historic job” with his team in 2020 and 2021 to scale Moderna’s vaccine manufacturing during a pandemic.
“He led the team from having made, across our entire portfolio, less than 100,000 doses in 2019 to more than 800 million doses in 2021,” Bancel said. “We and hundreds of millions of people across the globe who received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine owe Juan our gratitude.”
Andres has been focused on building out Moderna’s capabilities to support its pipeline and leading efforts to produce a personalized cancer vaccine, Bancel said. After his exit, his responsibilities on the personalized cancer vaccine will fall to president Stephen Hoge. Chief technical operations and quality officer Jerh Collins will be responsible for managing the manufacturing end of the Phase III trial and, eventually, the commercial release.
Andres was not immediately available for an interview with Endpoints News.
According to Andres’ LinkedIn profile, he has worked in manufacturing for most of his career, starting with Eli Lilly, culminating in his role as VP of manufacturing. He moved to Novartis in 2005, eventually becoming global head of technical operations, and was responsible for all aspects of manufacturing and the supply chain for the company’s pharma division.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to remove an incorrect reference to Bancel, and replace it with Andres.
