10X: Mod­er­na cre­ates a bil­lion-dose vac­cine pact in a fren­zied race to beat Covid-19 — glob­al­ly

For­get what you’ve heard in re­cent weeks about mil­lions, or even po­ten­tial­ly hun­dreds of mil­lions of dos­es of vac­cines to be made in the near term to fight the pan­dem­ic. To­day, the goal is set on the bil­lion-dose mark, and Mod­er­na $MR­NA has moved the last man­u­fac­tur­ing piece in place to hit the mark.

Ear­ly Fri­day the Boston-based mR­NA play­er, which has the most ad­vanced US vac­cine in the clin­ic, an­nounced a deal with Lon­za cre­at­ing a 10-year al­liance on vac­cine pro­duc­tion, start­ing with mR­NA-1287, head­ed in­to Phase II in a fast-paced tri­al pro­gram aimed at boot­ing up a near-term ap­proval that could land in a mat­ter of months — rough­ly the R&D equiv­a­lent of tak­ing a cross-coun­try stock car race and pow­er­ing the ve­hi­cles with rock­et en­gines.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER