WEBVTT - Moderna Is the COVID Vaccine Front-Runner 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.800 It's Thursday, July two. I'm Oscar Emiras from the Daily 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:08.119 Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:12.400 Maderna is currently the front runner and developing a coronavirus vaccine. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.400 They will be entering the third phase of clinical trials 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:19.320 this month with about thirty thousand people participating. Well, there's 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.239 a lot of hope writing on Maderna to come through. 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:24.200 The company has no track record in developing an approved 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.280 drug and is also using an unproven approach to making 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.880 the vaccine. Still, the company is worth twenty four billion 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:35.120 dollars because of his current work. Peter loftus reporter for 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.000 The Wall Street Journal, joins us for more on vaccine 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.960 front runner Maderna. Thanks for joining us, Peter, thanks for 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.360 having me on. We've got some good news surrounding vaccines 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:50.120 for coronavirus lately. Researchers said that an experimental coronavirus vaccine 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.800 from Fiser and their partner is showing promising signs of 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.640 working in an early stage study. But we want to 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.360 focus on an article that you wrote about the front 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:03.320 runner right now, the COVID vaccine front runner Maderna, and 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.600 they are entering their third stage of trials later this month. 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.600 They're the ones that are the furthest along in this process, 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.120 and there's a lot of hope behind the vaccine that 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.080 they're trying to develop. But some interesting things about this company, 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.839 They actually have no track record when it comes to 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.640 creating these types of vaccines right now. They haven't done 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.520 it just yet. And um, you know, you wrote about 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.839 their CEO and the culture of the business that they run. Peter, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.120 tell us a little bit more about it. This is 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.880 a biotech company that was started about ten years ago 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.680 and they're still in what you would call the development 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.800 phase of the company in the sense that they do 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:46.160 have multiple drugs and vaccines that they're working on, whether 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.880 it's in the labs or even in clinical trials in 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:54.280 patients to test them, but they've never actually received approval 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.280 to sell one of these drugs. So going into this year, 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.800 they were working and I think more than twenty different 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:07.960 drugs and vaccines for various diseases, including cancer and infectious diseases, 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.320 but there were still a good two to four years 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.680 away from being in a position to have their first 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:18.600 product on the market. So then what changed, obviously was 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:24.239 the pandemic and they eventually got involved in developing a 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.360 coronavirus vaccine, as you mentioned, and if it's successful, that 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.600 holds the possibility of being their first product. And so 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.720 it's an interesting situation because they are a relatively young 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:42.600 company using an unproven drug development technology and they're sort 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:47.120 of jockeying with these bigger, more established companies that do 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.520 have more of a track record of vaccines and drugs 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.959 in this global chase for a coronavirus vaccine. Sounding a 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.400 little bit more about this experimental development technique that they're using, 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.079 because the way they're doing it, they're using m RNA 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.480 messenger RNA to develop their vaccine. The other two front 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.079 runners for vaccines right now are one from Oxford and 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.560 Astra Zeneca and Johnson and Johnson. They're expected to start 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:15.840 some of their later trials later this year, I think 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:18.520 August in September. But they're doing it kind of the 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.160 classic way where you get like a little piece of 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.000 the virus or a dead part of the virus, and 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.280 then you know it kind of makes the immune system 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.280 respond to that. So the moderna vaccine works in a 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.280 slightly different way. How does theirs work? I just need 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.320 to clarify that the way that the vaccines from Oxford 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.680 and Astra Zeneca, as well as Johnson and Johnson, they're 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.600 actually not the old traditional way of making vaccines. They 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.240 do use virus material, but what they actually do is 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.240 take a common cold virus and they weaken it so 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.880 that it's not really going to infect anybody, but it 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.720 serves as sort of a carrier to get some of 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:02.160 the DNA from the coronavirus into the human body, into 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.000 human cells, and that sort of sets off a cascade 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.840 of events that is supposed to provide immunity. That's actually 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.720 a relatively new technology and there haven't been a ton 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.480 of vaccines based on that, so I just want to 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.080 make that clear. But it is different from what Maderna 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.400 is up to, and what Maderna is up to is 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.760 basically using a genetic code as the basis for its vaccine, 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.120 and so in their case, they're using what they call 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.000 messenger RNA or m RNA that is part of the 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.720 genetic code from a protein that's found on the surface 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.200 of the coronavirus, and what they do is they inject 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.680 that into people and once that gets into the human body, 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.040 it instructs human cells to basically make that protein or 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.039 make a close copy of that protein, and then that 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.960 then triggers an immune response, so that sort of makes 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.120 the immune system think that the coronavirus is present, and 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.880 then the immune system builds up defenses that theoretically would 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.320 then prepare a person for when they're actually exposed to 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.160 the virus in the future, although that part still has 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.640 yet to be proven. So there's two different styles and 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.520 madernas they use the RNA based approach, and this type 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.479 of technology really has not been seen in any approved 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:22.039 or licensed drug or vaccine to date, but they say 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.000 that there is a potential advantage to doing it with 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:29.760 this approach because they can design and manufacture these vaccines 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.400 much more quickly than other ways. They're going to be 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.120 entering their third stage of testing with I think like 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.560 thirty thousand people. And this is the real deal right here. 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.400 This is where a lot of vaccines end up failing 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.320 in the process. So there's a lot of hopes behind 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.600 what this next stage of the trials is going to 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.240 go through. The news that people may have heard to date, 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.320 including today, about the Fiser vaccine has been from early 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.239 relatively small clinical trials with you know, relatively small number 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.479 of people where they're basically just assessing safety and whether 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.880 the vaccine triggers an immune response as measured by taking 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.240 blood samples, and they need to do that just to 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.919 sort of set of baseline expectation that this is not 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.240 going to be harmful if they rolled out to a 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.080 broad number of people. So now, yes, these bigger trials 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.480 that are going to start getting underway in the next 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:29.240 couple of weeks are gonna more definitively show not only safety, 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:34.239 not only immune response, but also whether the vaccine actually 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.360 protects a person from either getting infected or from developing 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.800 a severe form of COVID nineteen. So those are being 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.240 awaited as sort of the most definitive proof to date 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.160 about which ones are going to work and which ones 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.719 aren't going to work. All of the work right now 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.920 being done on vaccines with regards to coronavirus has been 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.760 moving at lightning speed compared to the past and how 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.400 things have been done before. Let's say the trials, well, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.800 let's say we are getting good immune responses. Let's say 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.680 there's not many side effects and it's actually working. How 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.039 quickly would we be able to get that out to 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.080 the masses, because I think I read in the article 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.520 that you know, the CEO is confident that if it works, 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.520 maybe in the fall they could have some emergency uses 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.880 of the vaccine for frontline healthcare workers and things like that. 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.040 But to manufacture it and to get it out to 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.280 the public and mass, how long would that take. That 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.960 aspect of the lightning speed is that a lot of companies, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.320 and with the help of governments and other organizations, they 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.720 basically started to manufacture doses of their various vaccines before 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.680 they've proven whether they work or not, And so that's 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.800 different from normal vaccine development normally, it's it's more of 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.520 a serial step. So I think that it's a very 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.280 optimistic and hopeful view that some of these companies have 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.040 that there could be preliminary results and data from these 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.000 big clinical trials within a few months that might show 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.760 whether they work. So therefore, the US government, using its 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.520 public health emergency powers, could say, we think we have 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.840 enough data to allow one or more of the vaccines 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.960 to be used, but maybe at first on a limited basis, 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.720 like let's give it to healthcare workers first. So that's possibility. 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.360 I think there are people who are skeptical of that 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.960 and feel like it's going to take longer than that 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.880 to really get a clear answer about whether these vaccines 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.080 are safe and effective and yes, and then the manufacturing 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.160 also is an issue in the sense that, well, there 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.160 might be some initial doses that could start to be 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.600 given to healthcare workers, it still probably will take much 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.160 longer to really scale up production and have enough to 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.440 just vaccinate the whole country or vaccinate a good percentage 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.400 of the globe. Well, I mean, it's going to be 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.559 a huge summer for vaccine development as this trial is 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:49.320 going to go through and others are going to start. 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.120 Tell me a little bit about Maderna, the company, because 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:57.080 now they're worth about twenty four billion dollars their CEO 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.000 as a billionaire as well. The country and the world's hope, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:01.680 so are kind of pinned on them right now to 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.120 be the first one to finish developing the vaccine so 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.320 that we can hopefully get back to normal again. So 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:09.080 tell me a little bit about the company and the 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:14.160 culture there. The CEO is Stefan Boncel, and he has 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.920 been leading the company pretty much from the start, I 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.439 think since and for many years it's sort of labored 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:22.560 in obscurity in the sense that it was not a 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.600 household name, since it didn't have any products on the market, 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.880 it was really only familiar to people in biotech circles 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.120 or people who invested in biotech. And so it's mission 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:35.920 has been to take this concept of using m r 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.720 n A to develop treatments and vaccines for a number 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.719 of diseases. And so it's sort of grown steadily at 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:47.000 first through private investments and then eventually at the end 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.080 of it had an I p O and raised a 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.640 fair amount of money, so it's more in the public eye. 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.320 But for the first year or so, really through the 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.120 end of last year, the stock was kind of in 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.640 a limited range and not really doing anything outstanding. And yes, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.360 it's really it's been this year and mostly because of 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.040 its work on the coronavirus vaccine that it's just generated 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.560 a lot more interest and with that a big increase 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.360 in stock price and value. What we talked about in 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:20.439 our article, what we reported was a company culture that 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.800 was not only focused on really trying to develop this 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.320 new way of making drugs and vaccine, but also a 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:33.480 real hard charging culture, very high expectations, very demanding, requiring 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.960 a lot of hours from workers, and what you could 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.120 call sharper blunt critiques of workers if they weren't meeting 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:45.199 management's expectations. So this has motivated some employees to do better, 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.400 but others don't see that as their cup of tea 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.600 and have left. And so for a number of reasons, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.199 including that culture, I think it's been a subject of 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.319 debate that the company has in the eyes of people 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.200 who work in the industry as well as invest three. 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:02.920 As I said, there's a lot of hopes behind this 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.840 company and behind the potential vaccine that they're developing right now. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.680 So we'll have to see how it goes over the summer. 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.719 Peter LOFTUS reporter for The Wall Street Journal, thank you 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:18.280 very much for joining us my pleasure. I'm Loscar Ramirez 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.960 and this is reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:23.680 news stories. You can check me out on the Daily 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.760 Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us on 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.240 I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.