Many Radical New Applications

For Moderna, going from startup to world-leading vaccine maker was challenging enough. Bringing messenger RNA to flu shots, cancer treatments, and more will be even harder

- Robert Langreth

A year ago, Moderna Inc. was an unprofitable company with no marketed products and promising but totally unproven technology. None of its experimental drugs and vaccines had ever completed a large-scale trial. Experts were divided on how well the mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine it was about to enter in a Phase III trial would stack up against older, more established vaccine technologies.

This year, Moderna could deliver 1 billion doses of its Covid shot and bring in $19 billion in revenue. It’s become the rare biotech to hit the big time without being gobbled up by, or splitting profits with, a larger, more established company. Its market value—which hit $100 billion for the first time on July 14—exceeds that of stalwarts such as Bayer AG, the German inventor of aspirin, and biotech peers such as Biogen Inc., founded three decades prior.

The speed with which Moderna and its primary mRNA competitor, a partnership between Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, devised their shots has made a major contribution to the fight to end the pandemic. With strong efficacy, steady supply, and no show-stopping safety scares (officials are carefully monitoring rare heart inflammation cases in teenagers and young adults), mRNA shots have become the vaccines of choice, at least in countries that can get them.