Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty four since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: Today's main story. The first vaccines against COVID nineteen aren't
Speaker 1: just a landmark in the fight against the pandemic. They're
Speaker 1: also the stepping stone for an unconventional technology that could
Speaker 1: one day defeat other ailments that have eluded doctors from
Speaker 1: cancer to heart disease. But first, here's what happened in
Speaker 1: virus news today. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed tougher
Speaker 1: regulations across a swath of England in an effort to
Speaker 1: rein in the mutant strain of coronavirus that has spread
Speaker 1: across the country. South Korea and the Philippines moved to
Speaker 1: temporarily suspend UK lights, while Japan is strengthening entry regulations
Speaker 1: for people traveling from Britain. Air travel from Britain to
Speaker 1: France resumed after a two day halt, although with eligibility
Speaker 1: restrictions and a virus testing requirement. Italy uncovered the new
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen strain in an infected person with no apparent
Speaker 1: links to the UK Canada's public health authorities approved Maderna's
Speaker 1: coronavirus vaccine, the second to be licensed in the country
Speaker 1: that secured more doses per person than any other. Approval
Speaker 1: of the MODERNA shot will allow Canada to expand its
Speaker 1: vaccination campaign beyond inoculation sites and urban centers. Canada's northern
Speaker 1: regions have specifically requested Maderna doses due to its less
Speaker 1: cumbersome refrigeration requirements. Fiser and partner Bio and Tech agreed
Speaker 1: to double the supply of their covid en vaccine to
Speaker 1: the US. The new agreement brings the total number of
Speaker 1: doses to be delivered to the US to two hundred million,
Speaker 1: the companies announced Wednesday. The drugmakers expect to deliver all
Speaker 1: the doses by July. Also in the US, President Donald
Speaker 1: Trump injected confusion into the outlook for economic relief from
Speaker 1: the pandemic. On Tuesday night, the President demanded changes to
Speaker 1: the bipartisan legislation approved by Congress less than twenty four
Speaker 1: hours earlier, calling for an increase in the stimulus checks
Speaker 1: due to go out to most Americans to two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars from the agreed upon amount of six hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: If the President doesn't sign the legislation by December, government
Speaker 1: funding will lapse after midnight that day. And now for
Speaker 1: today's main story. Both of the approved COVID nineteen vaccines,
Speaker 1: developed by Maderna and the Fiser and Bio and Tech Partnership,
Speaker 1: use genetic material called messenger RNA to effectively transform the
Speaker 1: body's own cells into vaccine factories. This approach is a
Speaker 1: first for vaccines. It relies on decades of clinical research
Speaker 1: into whether messenger RNA technology can be used to treat
Speaker 1: a broad range of ailments, from cancer to the seasonal flu.
Speaker 1: I spoke to Naomi Krasky about whether the validation of
Speaker 1: this breakthrough technology during COVID nineteen could bring about a
Speaker 1: whole new field of medicine. The rapid development of the
Speaker 1: FISER and the MODERNA vaccines has brought a lot of
Speaker 1: attention to m RNA or messenger rn, a technology which
Speaker 1: hasn't been used before in vaccines. I was hoping you
Speaker 1: might give us just a maybe brief overview how messenger
Speaker 1: RNA vaccines work. So these vaccines, I mean, you're right,
Speaker 1: this is a new type of vaccine, and they used
Speaker 1: this genetic material called messenger RNA. This is a single
Speaker 1: stranded molecule that's complementary to one of the DNA strands
Speaker 1: of a gene. This genetic material is essentially what it
Speaker 1: does is transform the body's own cells into vaccine factories.
Speaker 1: And this is something that has been looked at for
Speaker 1: a couple of decades. It took quite a while to
Speaker 1: figure out how to use this effectively. It has been
Speaker 1: studied for a range of potential uses UM and you
Speaker 1: know wound up UM being of effective for the first
Speaker 1: time UM in clinical experiments for COVID nineteen. So maybe
Speaker 1: you can break down what gives m RNA technology the
Speaker 1: edge over conventional approaches to developing vaccines UM, either in
Speaker 1: terms of COVID nineteen or with regard to other diseases.
Speaker 1: So in terms of COVID nineteen, this was sort of
Speaker 1: an ideal test case in some ways for m RNA vaccines.
Speaker 1: The thing that really can make mRNA vaccines different UM.
Speaker 1: There are one obvious thing that's different about them is
Speaker 1: that they can be very quick to develop. And so
Speaker 1: for you know, when COVID nineteen emerged, these companies Moderna
Speaker 1: and BioNTech were able to look at the sequence the
Speaker 1: genetic sequence for the virus in January and start working
Speaker 1: on vaccines at that point, and really then with unprecedented
Speaker 1: speed they were able to come up with good vaccine candidates,
Speaker 1: test those candidates. I mean, in the case of bion Tech,
Speaker 1: they even did UM early human trials on a range
Speaker 1: of different candidates. UM. Their early stage trial was sort
Speaker 1: of a big science experiment in itself to see which
Speaker 1: of these candidates might work the best UM and then
Speaker 1: do massive late stage studies with tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: people all on in a really compressed timeline. And part
Speaker 1: of the reason that they could do that is because
Speaker 1: the early part of coming up with a potential vaccine
Speaker 1: is very quick with m R and A therapeutics compared
Speaker 1: to other types of conventional vaccines. Now, you mentioned that
Speaker 1: the use of m R and A technology had been
Speaker 1: undergoing research for many other diseases, obviously prior to the
Speaker 1: emergence of COVID nineteen. I was just wondering if you
Speaker 1: might go into some of the other diseases that mRNA
Speaker 1: technology could be applied to. One big potential use, and
Speaker 1: actually the main use that the Fiser partner, BioNTech, had
Speaker 1: been looking at prior to covid and is cancer. And
Speaker 1: this is you know, a different way of using an
Speaker 1: m RNA vaccine than in an infectious disease. In this
Speaker 1: case kind of put simply, UM, you're trying to alert
Speaker 1: the immune system to the different things that are in
Speaker 1: cancer cells so that the immune system will attack the cancer.
Speaker 1: It's it's using the mr ANDA vaccine as a therapeutic
Speaker 1: instead of as a vaccine defense against infectious disease. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, this is something that
Speaker 1: has been looked at for two decades UM and it's
Speaker 1: really a potential coming to fruition um in the next
Speaker 1: couple of years as well if it works, and whether
Speaker 1: it works is still still unclear. Just because this type
Speaker 1: of vaccine works for the coronavirus doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: it will work against a tumor. And beyond cancer, what
Speaker 1: are some of the other applications UM besides the coronavirus
Speaker 1: as far as treating diseases. So one that really obvious
Speaker 1: application would be any other type of vaccine or infectious disease.
Speaker 1: One potential use and this is something that's already been
Speaker 1: looked at UM is for seasonal flu and actually I
Speaker 1: want to say it was two years ago. UM. A
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, Visor and BioNTech made a
Speaker 1: deal together to work on MR ANDNA vaccines for seasonal flu.
Speaker 1: It's easy to understand how mRNA vaccines might work well
Speaker 1: for right because the flu virus virus has changed a
Speaker 1: little bit every year, and this is why flu vaccines
Speaker 1: need to be kind of tweaked every year, and they'll
Speaker 1: put out a new flu vaccine every year, and there
Speaker 1: is UM. You know, this takes time to do, and
Speaker 1: so you have MR and A vaccines and you can
Speaker 1: compress this time period of coming up with a vaccine candidate.
Speaker 1: It decreases the amount of guessworth that you might have
Speaker 1: to do. And so potentially UM they might be able
Speaker 1: to make flu vaccines that will be more effective than
Speaker 1: flu vaccines that we've had up to now. And that's
Speaker 1: not UM, that's not unsubstantial. So Messenger RNA might also
Speaker 1: help produce vaccines against viruses that have eluded conventional vaccine approaches. UM.
Speaker 1: One program that Moderna is doing UM is a vaccine
Speaker 1: against a virus that can cause birth defects when it's
Speaker 1: passed from pregnant mother to UM to an unborn child,
Speaker 1: and scientists have been trying to come up with a
Speaker 1: vaccine against this virus for half a century, and it's
Speaker 1: possible that the m R and A technology will will
Speaker 1: you know, make this possible for the first time. We
Speaker 1: could see a late stage patient trial starting next year
Speaker 1: with this approach. Now that we have seen the use
Speaker 1: and application of m R and A technology when it
Speaker 1: comes to the COVID nineteen vaccine with Fiser and Maderna
Speaker 1: and the approval thereof, has the development essentially of an
Speaker 1: m R and A technology based COVID nineteen vaccine affected
Speaker 1: the timeline of other treatments that are based on the
Speaker 1: same technology. It's funny and that you should ask that
Speaker 1: because it's sort of a two prompt answer. Um Like,
Speaker 1: On one hand, I think that seeing this technology be
Speaker 1: proved in such a public setting has definite, nearly increased
Speaker 1: interest in it, and so you know, increased interest leads
Speaker 1: to increased investment um, increased willingness um for funders to
Speaker 1: back this kind of thing um, so that could push
Speaker 1: timelines forward. On the other hand, you know, the pandemic
Speaker 1: itself has also in some cases made it harder to
Speaker 1: do clinical trials and made it more complicated to do
Speaker 1: clinical trials. UM. So you know that that could have
Speaker 1: a bit of the opposite effect UM in cancer. UM
Speaker 1: we could see initial efficacy data from patient studies as
Speaker 1: soon as the end of next year or early in
Speaker 1: bion Tech has told me, so we could begin to
Speaker 1: see a little bit of UM, a little bit of
Speaker 1: a sense pretty soon of of whether this has a
Speaker 1: broader utility. Looking ahead, what are some other potential application
Speaker 1: sans for m R and A technology. So some of
Speaker 1: these potential future uses I'm just gonna say, sound a
Speaker 1: little bit like science fiction for now, and they these
Speaker 1: are things that that maybe could work UM far into
Speaker 1: the future. UM, this is not something that's going to
Speaker 1: come next year or the year after next, or even
Speaker 1: you know, just a few years into the future. Right.
Speaker 1: But that having been said, bion Tech is doing early
Speaker 1: research into whether m R and A could be used
Speaker 1: to reprogram cells for regenerative medicine, and it's it's also
Speaker 1: possible in the future that scientists might be able to
Speaker 1: design targeted nanoparticles that can accumulate in certain types of
Speaker 1: tissues such as bone marrow. Drew Wiseman, who's an immunologist,
Speaker 1: at the University of Pennsylvania and who was one of
Speaker 1: the early people to really to really look at this technology,
Speaker 1: told us um And this might allow treatments for genetic
Speaker 1: diseases such as sickle cell anemia and with maybe even
Speaker 1: as a single ivy injection of a targeted therapy. Again,
Speaker 1: this is these are potential uses that could be far
Speaker 1: in the future, but just gives a little bit of
Speaker 1: a sense of the potential of this approach if it
Speaker 1: does indeed work in other disease areas. That was not
Speaker 1: only Kraski and that's it for our show today. For
Speaker 1: coverage of the outbreak from bureaus around the world, visit
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, slash coronavirus and if you like the show,
Speaker 1: please leave us a review and a rating on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more
Speaker 1: listeners find our global reporting. And there's a quick note
Speaker 1: for our listeners. The show will be taking a brief
Speaker 1: break this Friday, December. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced
Speaker 1: by to for fourhead Jordan gas Bouret, Magnus Henrickson, and
Speaker 1: me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Naomi Kresky,
Speaker 1: original music by Leo sidrin Our editors are Rick Shine
Speaker 1: and Francesca Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.