Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, along
Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts,
Speaker 1: along with essential market moving news kind the Bloomberg Markets
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. Optimism in the market today,
Speaker 1: though a little more temper than when the Fiser vaccine
Speaker 1: news came out, I would say, Paul, Yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: just an extraordinary hair so on the back of the
Speaker 1: Fiser news, Um, it just gives people some hope that
Speaker 1: there's some vaccines. Exactly what we're speaking of, of of course,
Speaker 1: is this new Maderna news arriving as the US passes
Speaker 1: eleven million coronavirus cases. We're going to be speaking with
Speaker 1: Sam Fuselli in a little bit to give us the
Speaker 1: context on exactly what this Maderna vaccine is. But first
Speaker 1: we actually have the man responsible for the Maderna vaccine.
Speaker 1: He is the chief executive officer of Modernist I found
Speaker 1: at bon Sell and he is joining our television colleagues
Speaker 1: Alex Steel and Guy Johnson. So let's toss it over
Speaker 1: to Alex So now we welcome our TV viewers and
Speaker 1: radio listeners to Stefan Vancell Maderna CEO. Stefan, it's been
Speaker 1: a big morning. Congratulations. Were obviously all very excited at
Speaker 1: any new prospect of a vaccine. The biggest question though,
Speaker 1: that it seems like people have is why does your
Speaker 1: vaccine require less cold storage than fives are key to distribution? Yes,
Speaker 1: good morning, and thank you for me. I think it
Speaker 1: goes back to the fact that we have been working
Speaker 1: on Emmony vaccines for more than five years. This is
Speaker 1: the tenth vaccine that we have been running a clinical
Speaker 1: trial on the over vaccine that you mentioned. It's the
Speaker 1: first time that they are doing need fictions is vaccine,
Speaker 1: and so over years we've been invested heavily in science,
Speaker 1: in process development that allows us now to have a
Speaker 1: much better storage condition than what we used to have
Speaker 1: five years ago. Stefan, this is really important because it's
Speaker 1: going to have a huge impact on distribution. How much
Speaker 1: of an effect will that stability at the higher temperature
Speaker 1: have and everybody's ability to be able to get hold
Speaker 1: of this vaccine. I think it's a huge impact. Were
Speaker 1: gonna have a vaccine started minus twenty between our factory
Speaker 1: and the big distribution centers, and those are able to
Speaker 1: handle that type of product because they're already product approved
Speaker 1: by the e M e A in Europe, amature in
Speaker 1: the UK, or d in the US at minus twenty celsius.
Speaker 1: But what is very important with today's news is we
Speaker 1: can now for to thirty days have a vaccine stared
Speaker 1: in the regular fridge at two to eight celsius like
Speaker 1: you do insulin. And as you know, every pharmacy, uh
Speaker 1: you know, doctor's office, hospital has that capability. So we
Speaker 1: think it's a very important game changer. The VPS two.
Speaker 1: To keep in mind this a vaccine does not require dilution,
Speaker 1: and uh the over vaccine that you mentioned requires dilution
Speaker 1: at the site. So you take the vaccine out, they
Speaker 1: need to dialute it. It's an extra step. What we
Speaker 1: have to do to get the world back to normal
Speaker 1: is a massive vaccination campaign that never really happened before.
Speaker 1: And so every time we're going to be wasting doing
Speaker 1: this type of things for the product is going to
Speaker 1: be an issue. And so we think that between the
Speaker 1: fridge condition storage and the fact that we do not
Speaker 1: require any dilution on site. That's gonna be a big
Speaker 1: advantage for nurses and doctors to be able to provide
Speaker 1: those vaccines quickly to the population. We wants it such
Speaker 1: a good distinction. Um, have you had conversations with the
Speaker 1: current administration or the incoming Biden administration about kind of distribution,
Speaker 1: how to mobilize. Yes. So the operational web Speed has
Speaker 1: been working in the US very closely with the CDC
Speaker 1: for a long time and we're in daily discussions with them.
Speaker 1: What we're gonna do as soon as we got prov
Speaker 1: all or a new way by the us FD is
Speaker 1: to ship the product via mckenson with the US government
Speaker 1: as selected, because we are very active in the seasonal
Speaker 1: flu process to get the vaccines out to hospital and pharmacies.
Speaker 1: As I'm sure you read CVS Walgreen right and all
Speaker 1: the big pharmacy changed in the US have signed up
Speaker 1: to get the vaccine from mckinsson to provide administration in
Speaker 1: the pharmacies. This is also going to be available you
Speaker 1: know in hospitals in some rural area, in community hospitals
Speaker 1: or GPS office. So there's a lot of work going
Speaker 1: on and this is actually the government taking care of
Speaker 1: that step, whereas you know, the military is being involved
Speaker 1: to help with logistics stefan um. One of the key
Speaker 1: questions as we all watch the case count climbing around
Speaker 1: the world is what impact will these shots have on transmission?
Speaker 1: So what affects if I have to say my arm,
Speaker 1: will this have on my ability if I come into
Speaker 1: contact to get the virus to transmit it to others? Yes,
Speaker 1: and this we don't know yet. What we know from
Speaker 1: today's data is that if you get on vaccine, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a ninety four percent chance to have no
Speaker 1: COVID disease. That's obviously a big deal. But what is
Speaker 1: even more important in my opinion, is of the nine
Speaker 1: case of disease that were analyzed yesterday by the independent
Speaker 1: n I actually lead safety board was severe cases, which
Speaker 1: was the secondary endpoint of that phase free study. So
Speaker 1: eleven of the ninety cases were severe. But what is
Speaker 1: really remarkable is that of those eleven cases eleven where
Speaker 1: with people who got placebo. There were no case reported
Speaker 1: of people who get the model of vaccine. So when
Speaker 1: you put those two data together, what does it tell
Speaker 1: you with the data we have to there, it's seems
Speaker 1: that are vaccine. If you get it, you're very high
Speaker 1: chance of being with no disease, and if you get diseased,
Speaker 1: most probably you will get mild disease. And if you
Speaker 1: think about the impact on hospitalization, I see you, and
Speaker 1: the impact on the economy where governments around the world
Speaker 1: are trying to slow down contacts because they want to
Speaker 1: manage the limited hospital and I see capacity. So if
Speaker 1: that problem was to go away by having a vaccine
Speaker 1: that prevents severe disease like ours seem to do, that's
Speaker 1: a game changer. To your question about transmission. We will
Speaker 1: know soon. As part of our study, we're also looking
Speaker 1: at measuring antibodies that come from the virus but could
Speaker 1: not come from the vaccine, and so when we have
Speaker 1: that data will of course share it. It is possible
Speaker 1: that the vaccine will prevent infection. We have shown that
Speaker 1: in non human primates, in monkeys, but we need of
Speaker 1: course to puttin human now just in a bit more time.
Speaker 1: But the most important thing is to prevent disease. Is
Speaker 1: if people vaccinated will not have disease, we will be
Speaker 1: in a very different world. What's the breakdown for the
Speaker 1: German population versus older people? Say those over sixty five,
Speaker 1: you have fifteen in a trial, right, So what was
Speaker 1: plasibo which were vaccinated? What was the effect? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't know all the details yet because remember the company
Speaker 1: is blind dead, the data is owned and run by
Speaker 1: the independent Safety Bomb. But what we know is that
Speaker 1: we had only five active cases on on the drug
Speaker 1: and so we anticipate a good response in the elderly.
Speaker 1: We will know more in a couple of weeks when
Speaker 1: we have the study finalized and file to be f
Speaker 1: D and in the MHI in the UK. But if
Speaker 1: you look at the phase one data which were published
Speaker 1: in the New England, were actually the vaccine of all
Speaker 1: the vaccines in the clinic that was able to sustain
Speaker 1: from the twenty five year old to a seventy year
Speaker 1: old the same level of antibody for all of a
Speaker 1: participants in the study. So we are costly optimistic that
Speaker 1: in the elderly and other people with high commobility factor
Speaker 1: we should have an effective vaccine. Stephan, I'm Christina guard
Speaker 1: the president of the e CV. Was asked the other
Speaker 1: day what the greatest fear was. One of them was war,
Speaker 1: the other one was Mike, how big a fear? Do
Speaker 1: you have about mutation And it's our messenger, robyn Ny
Speaker 1: claic ascid the best way of dealing with any kind
Speaker 1: of mutation that we say, So let me start with
Speaker 1: your last question. Yes, MRY is the best technology to
Speaker 1: deal with mutation. While because we've shown in January that
Speaker 1: it took us forty two days to go from the
Speaker 1: sequence published by the Chinese government of the Saskovie two
Speaker 1: two shipping to be a ni H human grade quality product,
Speaker 1: I think we can take this down to around thirty
Speaker 1: days with the things we've learned and the investment we
Speaker 1: have made. So if tomorrow there was a new mutation
Speaker 1: like the one you mentioned that could have an impact
Speaker 1: on the efficacy of vaccine, we could within a month
Speaker 1: go back and have a new vaccine. We will not
Speaker 1: need to do studies anymore because it's the same chemistry
Speaker 1: for the molecular emoney. It's the same manufacturing process. So
Speaker 1: if you change out of a message that is very long,
Speaker 1: thousands of letters of genetic code of life, if you
Speaker 1: change a couple of them for mutation, do not have
Speaker 1: to redo clinical studies anymore. So MNEY is clearly the
Speaker 1: best adapted for mutation on the one you mentioned. We
Speaker 1: are tracking it. We're gonna run the experiment very quickly
Speaker 1: to see those the blood that we have from the humans.
Speaker 1: We went on phase one and of phase two. Does
Speaker 1: it neutralize the new virus. If it does, we know
Speaker 1: the vaccine works. Well. If it doesn't, we can quickly
Speaker 1: change the sequence and have a new vaccine. Can you
Speaker 1: give me some perspective on the side effects. Yes, the
Speaker 1: side effects. We've reported the serious side effects in the
Speaker 1: press release for Transparent Serison. They are very similar to
Speaker 1: what you see with other vaccines. We did not even
Speaker 1: report the fever because they were less than two percent
Speaker 1: of cases at fever. And what you see is what
Speaker 1: you see with commercial vaccine. A bit of pain at
Speaker 1: the side of injection, a bit of rensse for their
Speaker 1: two both go away with no medication, and that the
Speaker 1: systemical values is some people having some fatigue, especially in
Speaker 1: the elderly group. You see people having a bit of headache. Again,
Speaker 1: those things go away usually within the day or so
Speaker 1: with no medication. Of course, people can take a time
Speaker 1: all or equivalent and actually not even feel those pains. Sevan,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the moment to go about being able to reformulate,
Speaker 1: How quickly do you think you'll get into kind of
Speaker 1: two point zero three point zero? How quickly do you
Speaker 1: think that cycle will happen um and what improved and
Speaker 1: do you think you'll be looking for? You mentioned temperature
Speaker 1: early on as paying more of the critical factors as
Speaker 1: you look for reformulations. What work are you doing and
Speaker 1: how improved will be the product and how quickly? Yes,
Speaker 1: so that's a great question. I think we're of course
Speaker 1: always working on temperature and stability the thirty days when
Speaker 1: as today at French semperature is the first step forward.
Speaker 1: Because we have that data, we continue to monitor a
Speaker 1: product that is own stability in our abs and if
Speaker 1: we're able to expand it will do so. The other
Speaker 1: piece I think is single those usage. The current product,
Speaker 1: like all the other products, is multi dose, so in
Speaker 1: every vile you're gonna get ten dozes for ten people.
Speaker 1: And the reason the entire industry did that is very
Speaker 1: is not enough filling capacity in the world that was
Speaker 1: sitting idle to wait for a pandemic, and so by
Speaker 1: putting tenders in one vile, we can of course get
Speaker 1: much quicker product in the marketplace to vaccinate people. But
Speaker 1: if you think about the potential us from the meat
Speaker 1: too long term. In term of boosting, it will be
Speaker 1: much easier to have a single dose vaccination like you
Speaker 1: have when you get a seasonal flu shot stuff. I
Speaker 1: found a question from me. As you said at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this conversation, you've been working on this for
Speaker 1: a long time. You were looking to use messenger RNA
Speaker 1: for other therapies. Can you talk to me about the
Speaker 1: acceleration you've been through within your business as a result
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen and I'm looking for silver linings here?
Speaker 1: Will this help in treatments elsewhere? Will it help with
Speaker 1: cancer and other areas? Yes, I'm a place where it's
Speaker 1: going to help the most is infectious disease vaccine. We
Speaker 1: have six vaccines for over infectious disease that are all
Speaker 1: first class, meaning no commercial vaccine available. A good example
Speaker 1: is CMB Cito megat of virus. It's a virus that
Speaker 1: drives the number one course of birth defect in Europe
Speaker 1: or in the US ten thousand kids in the US
Speaker 1: per year. No vaccine on the market. The WAD industry
Speaker 1: a strike for twenty years to get a CMB vaccine
Speaker 1: to work. They all failed well with the positive phase
Speaker 1: to study in September, starting the Phase three next year.
Speaker 1: That's a two to five billion annual pixel product that
Speaker 1: we have not licensed, so meaning it's a product percent
Speaker 1: for Moderna, and we have many more like this. We
Speaker 1: just announced we're going to get into the flu business.
Speaker 1: So what the COVID vaccine has done for Moderna is
Speaker 1: one deal is king of a platform for vaccines, which
Speaker 1: translated into a lot of value. And two is an
Speaker 1: acceleration for us becoming a commercial company. We were supposed
Speaker 1: to be commercial in the twenty three to twenty four
Speaker 1: time frame, when now it's possible we were being commercial
Speaker 1: before the end of the year. That's called an acceleration. Stephan,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. In Day. We really appreciate your
Speaker 1: time today. Thank you very much in Day sharing it
Speaker 1: with us Stephanel the Moderna CEO. That was Stefan ban Cell,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Moderna speaking with Bloomberg's Guy Johnson and
Speaker 1: Alex Steel, talking about out the study that just came
Speaker 1: out about their vaccine. Again, ninety four point five percent efficacy,
Speaker 1: very high number, uh, you know, kind of in the
Speaker 1: ballpark with what we saw from Fiser last week's We've
Speaker 1: got two possible vaccines coming to markets. That's certainly very
Speaker 1: positives if we think about this pandemic right now. Let's
Speaker 1: get some more details on what this modern vaccine might
Speaker 1: look like. We can do that with Bloomberg Intelligence senior
Speaker 1: pharmac pharmaceutical analysts. That would be Sam Fizzelli. He joins
Speaker 1: us from France. Sam, thanks so much for joining us here. Boy,
Speaker 1: this number, the point five percent jumps out of it
Speaker 1: just like the number did as well. How do you
Speaker 1: compare and contrast um these two potential vaccines? Yeah, high
Speaker 1: paul Um. So I think on the efficacy front, we
Speaker 1: should currently assume that they're similarly effective, because these are
Speaker 1: you know, nine seven percent versus nine point five on
Speaker 1: a few cases can go either way as the case
Speaker 1: as the crew. So I would call the two vaccines
Speaker 1: equivalent in terms of efficacy, at least on the early data.
Speaker 1: But then you have all the various other levels. So no,
Speaker 1: Darn has done something that Fighter did not. They have
Speaker 1: given us a bit more detailed They first they gave
Speaker 1: us the statistical power, which is great, and then they
Speaker 1: told us about the severe cases none in the vaccinated group.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic to see. Um So that's like a protection.
Speaker 1: But we're already dealing with the eleven cases, and then
Speaker 1: you've got the elderly. And Steven Bontel did not go
Speaker 1: into the detail, but if you assume that all the
Speaker 1: cases on the vaccine are are older people, which is
Speaker 1: very unlikely, then you still have at least a fifty
Speaker 1: effective vaccine for older people. And I'm convinced that it
Speaker 1: would be better than that. And they did have slightly
Speaker 1: better data in elderly than others did, but that's early
Speaker 1: phase one too, So everything looks pretty good for this
Speaker 1: vaccine and also fights us based on the data that
Speaker 1: we have to date. UM. So the m RNA technology
Speaker 1: transforms the body's own cells into vaccine making factories. Apparently,
Speaker 1: does that mean that when you come in contact with
Speaker 1: the coronavirus, it doesn't get into your system and your
Speaker 1: your your body doesn't go into sort of overdrive trying
Speaker 1: to immunize your own body. So there's two things that
Speaker 1: we want a vaccine to do, and we know that
Speaker 1: these two vaccines do at least one of them. That is,
Speaker 1: they prevent the infection from setting off a massive problem
Speaker 1: within a disease within the body, so they limit the
Speaker 1: infection and that's great. What we don't know is if
Speaker 1: they eliminate the infection or stop the infection taking hold
Speaker 1: at all. Therefore that so called sterilizing immunity. Do I do?
Speaker 1: I am I still even though I'm vaccinated and don't
Speaker 1: have a disease, still at risk of passing the virus
Speaker 1: to somebody else or not. That is the thing that
Speaker 1: they have to answer, and we still don't know. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how um Mr bon Cell's answer to
Speaker 1: that question actually gets to that point. They need to
Speaker 1: look at the virus in the nose, and I don't
Speaker 1: think any of the companies have really done that on
Speaker 1: a routine weekly basis during their trial. So, Sam, So
Speaker 1: we have two vaccines potentially out there. I know there
Speaker 1: are more entities out there working at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, how many do you think will be commercially
Speaker 1: deployed to the market. Oh boy, I mean that's a
Speaker 1: that's a tough one. So we look at the early
Speaker 1: data for all these vaccines so far, and they all
Speaker 1: seem pretty much the same. Maybe the AstraZeneca one is not,
Speaker 1: or at least in the early trials didn't quite match
Speaker 1: the data that we go for some of these other vaccines.
Speaker 1: So time will tell you in the next few weeks
Speaker 1: how that does in the UK trial. But I think
Speaker 1: the majority of them will be in these sort of ranges.
Speaker 1: So you've gotta you know that that creates a conundrum
Speaker 1: for people or or a good problem to have. You
Speaker 1: have to choose between them, and I don't envy we
Speaker 1: ever has to do that. I suppose the reason I
Speaker 1: was asking the previous questions samus because I was wondering
Speaker 1: about longhoulers or people that you know, get over it,
Speaker 1: you know, more quickly, but then develop longer term symptoms.
Speaker 1: Do we know if this vaccine protects those kinds of people.
Speaker 1: So that's a very interesting question. One is I think
Speaker 1: the if the this issue with longhoulders is because they
Speaker 1: have a little reservoir somewhere in the guard or systems
Speaker 1: somewhere the virus continues to be alive and replicate and
Speaker 1: keep couldn't have ac every now and then. If that's
Speaker 1: the case, then with the vaccinated situation, you will have
Speaker 1: much lower risk of that. But if the problem for
Speaker 1: patients is that um, they've got the virus and then
Speaker 1: there's other stuff that happens in the body, the immune
Speaker 1: system have been going crazy, etcetera, that causes that long
Speaker 1: haul issue with that long COVID. Then of course the
Speaker 1: vaccine won't help that, except that if you never get
Speaker 1: a proper disease from the