Sanofi turns to an up­start in the mR­NA field in lat­est at­tempt to quick­ly squelch a glob­al pan­dem­ic

You can add one more mes­sen­ger RNA pro­gram in the works for Covid-19 — and phar­ma gi­ant Sanofi is part­ner­ing on it, adding to its more tra­di­tion­al vac­cine ap­proach head­ed slow­ly but steadi­ly to the clin­ic.

Sanofi $SNY chose Trans­late Bio’s $TBIO mR­NA plat­form for the al­liance, hitch­ing a ride with an­oth­er biotech look­ing to dis­patch nu­cleotide se­quences en­cod­ed for anti­gens, or vi­ral pro­teins, that can kick up an im­mune re­sponse. New se­quenc­ing tech has giv­en these plat­forms a big leg up over old­er — and much slow­er — plat­forms that re­ly on eggs and cell cul­tures to re­li­ably dis­cov­er and de­liv­er the vi­ral pro­teins need­ed to safe­ly spur im­mune re­spons­es to prep them to re­pel a spe­cif­ic in­vad­er.

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