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Xavier Martinez, News Associate at The Wall Street Journal, breaks down Moderna’s mRNA ambitions, its pipeline beyond COVID-19 and the challenges ahead.
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00:00Moderna is continuing to develop and advance its mRNA vaccine technology as the company looks to
00:06expand beyond COVID-19 and into new diseases and vaccine applications. Joining us now to walk us
00:12through all of it is Xavier Martinez, News Associate at The Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much for
00:17being here today. Thank you so much for having me. Of course, let's dive right in, Xavier. So tell us
00:23a little bit more about Moderna's mRNA vaccine technology. Where does it stand right now and
00:28what are the company's biggest priorities beyond COVID-19? Absolutely. Yeah. So this is an
00:34experimental cancer vaccine. It's used together with the immunotherapy Keytruda, which is developed
00:41by Merck. And what the company's announced last week is that it succeeded in a large study of
00:47melanoma patients. It's delayed the cancer from coming back and kept it from spreading to other
00:52parts of the body. This is a big priority for both of the companies. Moderna has been wanting to get
00:57into the oncology market for years. It's a massive $240 plus billion market. And Merck has its patent
01:06expiring on Keytruda and a couple of other drugs in the coming years. And so they're looking to
01:10replenish that revenue. Of course, this is also a big step forward potentially for cancer patients.
01:16Yeah, it seems like it's great for business. But as you're saying, definitely great for cancer patients.
01:21And so exciting to think about where this could all lead. I mean, how significant do you think that
01:26this technology really could become for the next generation of vaccines? Or again, as we're
01:30speaking about now with other types of cancer treatments and everywhere else that it could go?
01:35Absolutely. I mean, this has been a remarkable year for cancer treatments. Earlier this year,
01:40we saw a breakthrough pancreatic cancer drug that succeeded in targeting a really hard to treat
01:45mutation on those cancers. I think this really shows a step forward in the mRNA technology,
01:52right? In the past, what we've seen with the mRNA technology is that you could use these preventative
01:56vaccines like COVID or flu, which was just approved for Moderna a couple of weeks ago,
02:02to help prevent people from getting some of these infectious diseases. But this is completely
02:07different. This is showing that we can actually encode some of the common mutations in someone's
02:12cancer into that mRNA, put it back inside your body, and teach the immune system to target and go
02:18after that cancer that's personalized for you. So I think it's a big step forward for the technology.
02:23It's a big step forward for cancer patients. The companies are testing this vaccine and other
02:28cancers like lung cancer, which is very, very common, pancreatic cancer, which is hard to treat,
02:34bladder cancer, and kidney cancer.
02:36Well, it's just incredible to think about the technology and what that could mean for people
02:40and how it's all working now. Just incredible to think about. Tell us a little bit more about some of
02:45these most promising vaccines or other therapies that Moderna is currently developing. Is it just
02:50these cancer ones that you've been mentioning now, or is it actually beyond that as well?
02:55Absolutely. I mean, Moderna has a whole portfolio. They're one of the unique companies in biotech in
02:59that they are really focused on the platform, the mRNA, right? They're not doing bits and pieces in
03:04different technologies. They're really, really drilled in on the mRNA. So they have sort of three
03:09different parts of their portfolio. They have the infectious diseases, which we've seen most of so far,
03:14you know, with the flu and COVID. They have oncology now, which they're going to, I imagine,
03:20probably broaden out. And I think, you know, they're going to announce the results of this
03:24oncology program, the melanoma trial. They're going to announce the raw numbers and stuff at a
03:30medical conference later this year. I think that'll show us to the extent that they're able to actually
03:35broaden out into other types of cancers, whether we can do it in the sort of early stages of cancer,
03:41whether we can actually use this therapy for a later stage metastasized cancer where it's spread
03:47throughout the body. And then I think the last thing that they're focused on is rare diseases,
03:52right? It's a very big market in the pharmaceutical world. And so I think that sort of three-headed
03:57dragon is really Moderna's bread and butter right now. And oncology sort of bet has really paid off
04:02in a big way.
04:04Yeah, it seems like it really has. I mean, especially with Moderna being so known for the COVID vaccine for
04:08so long now, really branching out into something new and exciting here, thinking about those COVID
04:13vaccines that a lot of us got, you know, different companies giving them out, but Moderna was one of
04:19the big ones. How has the demand for COVID-19 vaccines really changed? And again, how is that
04:25even now maybe pushing Moderna to say, okay, we've got to find something else here?
04:29Absolutely. I mean, a lot was resting on this cancer readout in terms of Moderna's fortunes.
04:36I think I was speaking with a lot of analysts and industry experts throughout this year saying that,
04:41you know, if this doesn't hit, if this doesn't show a promising result, you know, we might be looking
04:45at a much smaller Moderna or even no Moderna at all in a couple of years. And so that's mainly
04:52because, you know, they had this boon when it came to COVID times. They were one of the first
04:56companies to develop a vaccine. They did it in, you know, less than six months. And I just think that
05:02since then demand has fallen off a cliff really, right? The government's not incentivizing that
05:07anymore. They're not helping fund the research. And in terms of cultural sort of shifts, right,
05:13there's been a lot of, I think, doubts and political tensions when it comes to the mRNA
05:17technology. Breaking into this cancer world is massive for Moderna. I think that it really changes
05:23their fortunes. It shows that a longstanding commitment to looking at how we can actually
05:27influence the immune system to go after cancers using this mRNA technology can just be really
05:35promising for the company. And we saw the market reaction the next day. It was one of the largest,
05:41I think it was the largest one-day move in the S&P 500 in the last 25 years, which
05:46shows you just,
05:48I think, first of all, how good the news was for Moderna, but also how much investors were riding on
05:55on this being such a determinant of their future. Yeah, that's an incredible statistic. I didn't
06:00realize that was, I mean, that's a huge jump. That's amazing. I'm thinking about it kind of in
06:04this business vein, because, right, obviously amazing for patients, but in the business vein of
06:09things, I mean, what kind of questions have they faced about costs and profitability and how important
06:14is it then for the company to really turn this mRNA pipeline into a revenue generating product here?
06:20Absolutely. I mean, they were kind of working on borrowed time for a bit there.
06:23You could listen to their earnings calls and you could see that their sales were really falling
06:30off a cliff post-COVID, but I think especially post-2022, you saw sales that were down 90% or
06:35more year over year. And the stock certainly showed that as well. It was down more than 90%
06:40from its COVID highs. And so when you think about what this program means for Moderna going forward,
06:47it means so, so much. I think that not only were they losing sales, but they were using all that
06:54money that they were getting in the COVID times to really fund this oncology program. It costs
06:58millions and millions of dollars to enroll patients in clinical trials. This clinical trial testing the
07:04vaccine in melanoma patients was over 1,000 people. And so you can do the math there and think about
07:08how
07:08costly that can be. And that's why partnering with a big pharmaceutical company like Merck is so
07:13important for not only doing the clinical trials and helping share the costs there and help make
07:19things a little bit more efficient and doable on Moderna's side when their sales are so down,
07:23but also when it comes to bringing that drug to market, commercializing it, which could potentially
07:27happen next year. It's going to make things, I think, a lot more seamless for Moderna, which
07:32is still a relatively small biotech. And so I think that when it comes to looking at the last couple
07:39of
07:39years, they were on some shaky ground, they were on some thin ice. But I think that both the
07:44partnership with Merck and the readout of this oncology program really bodes well for Moderna's
07:49future.
07:50Yeah, it seems like it really does. And thinking about that commercialization for next year,
07:53as you're talking about, what do you think the biggest scientific or regulatory challenges
07:58could be that could potentially slow down the expansion of the mRNA vaccine, especially considering
08:03some of the White House protocols and kind of what's happening with the Department of Health federally?
08:09Well, I think, you know, we'll take those one at a time, right? I think scientific, first of all,
08:14we need to see the full data set, right? I spoke with a lot of people after the readout last
08:19week
08:19that said, this is wonderful, wonderful news. But all we know right now is that it succeeded in
08:23meeting those goals, right? And we don't know if it was a really landmark thing where it just
08:29prevented it from growing in most, if not all patients, or if that was kind of a mixed signal. And
08:34we're seeing, you know, some patients are benefiting more than others. So first of all,
08:38we need to see the full data set to see actually how powerful this drug is. So that's remains to
08:44be seen. I think we'll probably see that data before the end of the year. In terms of getting
08:48it actually approved by the FDA, you know, we've seen a lot of kind of changing fortunes when it
08:54comes to the FDA and how they look at drugs. I think that they've kind of balanced things out
08:58in recent months. We even saw Moderna have its flu vaccine approved. That uses the mRNA technology.
09:05It was approved just a couple of weeks ago. And so I think that when it comes to oncology, right,
09:10cancer is a terrible, terrible disease. Really, I think everyone is united in that they want
09:15patients to have the best treatments that they possibly can. And I think that, you know,
09:19if the data reads out on a numerical level in the way that we're seeing it that we did last
09:25week,
09:26then I think we can expect it to probably have good fortunes when it comes to its regulatory path
09:31forward. That's not to say that it might face some struggles when it comes to actually delivering
09:35it to patients. I know there's a lot of doubt when it comes to using mRNA and vaccines and everything
09:40like that. And that's another problem or, I guess, a hurdle that the company has to overcome. And then
09:47I think the last thing that they'll have to do is just figure out the manufacturing side of this,
09:51right? They've invested a whole bunch of money in a new manufacturing facility outside of Boston
09:55in Massachusetts. But ultimately, this is a individualized cancer therapeutic vaccine.
10:02And it's going to be really important that they can, you know, get all of the supply chain,
10:06all the logistics, all the manufacturing figured out, so they can actually bring this drug to market.
10:11Yeah, I mean, it really seems like there are so many different forces at play here,
10:14but very exciting to think about. And we definitely appreciate you being here today,
10:18Xavier Martinez, News Associate at the Wall Street Journal, to break it all down for us.
10:22We'll keep our eye on everything you're talking about. Thank you so much.
10:25Thank you so much, Justine.
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