Thread by @milaakso

Does Moderna Therapeutics Have the NEXT Next Big Thing?

In December 2012, @moderna_tx announced that it had pioneered a technology that would revolutionize medicine and disrupt the pharmaceutical industry. 1/14

@OssiTiihonen @MikkoKorhonen12 @ChiLaiLee bostonmagazine.com/health/2013/02…

But biotech startups have been promising this for decades, and the revolution has yet to arrive. Can Moderna really pull off what countless others have not?

“In five years (2017), that mRNA you just saw there might treat a disease that is currently not druggable.” /2

@iamAntero

Moderna scientists engineered their mRNA, coded it for the missing proteins, injected it into the sick animals, and restored them to health. "When it comes to small animals" (5-11 y?), Bancel says, "the technology works". 3/14

@payLiina1975 @miikka_korhonen @mtmalinen @VVElomaa

When I asked Bancel how Moderna gets its modified mRNA to the correct cell or organ system, he didn’t offer any details. All he would say was that it was related to the mRNA coding. /4

@IPiikki @takapirulainen @MatsRonnback @TKL_Sanna_S @HNohynek @kirpputar @OVikman @IkeNovikoff

Nobody knows for sure what Moderna can actually do, because the company hasn’t released its data—at least not to anyone who isn’t legally bound to secrecy. Given how the company has hyped itself since its press release, this kind of secrecy rubs some scientists the wrong way. /5

“How they came out really ruffled some feathers,” says a Boston scientist. “Everyone here (Boston area) is trying to do something great,” he says, “They’re claiming they are doing something great, but without having the papers to show for it.” /6

@mika_salminen @OHelve @olssi

The year 2013, @sbancel told them, would be Moderna’s make-or-break year, when, in the intoxicating pursuit of scientific discovery and entrepreneurial success, the company would launch its human clinical trials - and would at last learn if it had found the holy grail. /7
@olssi

If the technology proved successful in humans, it would take Moderna weeks, not years, to make a new product. Because the company would always be making the same thing - mRNA - the only thing that would ever have to change was the protein for which the mRNA would be coded. 8/14

Moderna would be able to go after the rare and tragic “orphan” diseases, those that Big Pharma companies don’t pursue because there just aren’t enough patients in need of treatment to make the production financially worthwhile. Moderna, could save lives. Children’s lives. 9/14

Because Moderna would not be making drugs, he explained, but instead would be engineering the mRNA to code for those drugs, it could completely bypass all protections and compete immediately with patented drugs. /10
@Samuel_Gryning @EemeliHuvi @AnttiHeikkil2 @mapetti @HalilaHannu

Because the Moderna technology allows proteins to be made inside cells - something currently impossible with other protein-based therapeutics.

Given that Moderna’s technology isn’t a one-time fix, like gene therapy, patients would have to keep buying the company’s products. /11

When Bancel broke the news of his departure to the board of directors at BioMérieux, they reacted with confusion. Why on earth would he resign from such a powerful position to be employee number two at a startup with no products and only a single mouse experiment behind it? 12/14

Fast-forward - Ennen vuotta 2020, yhtään Modernan tuotetta ei ollut hyväksytty mihinkään käyttöön.

Tammikuun 11. 2020 (lauantaina) kiinalaiset julkaisivat koronan sekvenssin - Kaksi (2!) päivää myöhemmin, Modernan rokote on valmis! /13
@kraade @EHaltmar
edition.cnn.com/world/live-new…

Kiinalaiset julkaisevat jotain lauantaina... Modernan väki saa sen selville, säntää kesken viikonlopun HQ:lle, sopii nuotit, käärii hihat, syö vähän, ottaa torkut, ja maanantaina heillä on rokote! 14/14

Käsi ylös ken uskoo!

@mtmalinen @miikka_korhonen @ER_Korhola @elinavaltonen