Moderna co-founder: AstraZeneca deal boosted the company but mRNA drugs never materialised

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Among all the awards and mementos Moderna co-founder Kenneth Chien has accumulated over a 50-year career in science, one stands out for its sheer luxe: an Hermes belt.

It was a 2013 gift from Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, one of biotech’s more dapper CEOs, after Chien helped secure a large partnership between the then-tiny mRNA startup and the Swedish-British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.

The deal accelerated Moderna’s ascent, helping bring billions in funding and of course the life-saving mRNA Covid vaccines. But the actual medicines AstraZeneca planned to build through those deals — up to 40 mRNA-based drugs for cancer and cardiovascular disease — never materialized.

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