Moderna, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA), a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO) for fill/finish sterile manufacturing services and supply packaging for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine.
Under the terms of the agreement, Thermo Fisher's commercial manufacturing site in Greenville, North Carolina will be used for aseptic fill/finish, labeling and packaging to support the production of hundreds of millions of doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Production will begin in the third quarter of 2021.
"Thermo Fisher has been a critical partner in supplying raw materials for our COVID-19 vaccine and we are now pleased to further expand our relationship as an important manufacturing partner as well," said Juan Andres, Moderna's Chief Technical Operations and Quality Officer. "The addition of Thermo Fisher to our network will support our efforts to scale up our manufacturing ability."
About Moderna
In 10 years since its inception, Moderna has transformed from a science research-stage company advancing programs in the field of messenger RNA (mRNA), to an enterprise with a diverse clinical portfolio of vaccines and therapeutics across six modalities, a broad intellectual property portfolio in areas including mRNA and lipid nanoparticle formulation, and an integrated manufacturing plant that allows for both clinical and commercial production at scale and at unprecedented speed. Moderna maintains alliances with a broad range of domestic and overseas government and commercial collaborators, which has allowed for the pursuit of both groundbreaking science and rapid scaling of manufacturing. Most recently, Moderna's capabilities have come together to allow the authorized use of one of the earliest and most-effective vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moderna's mRNA platform builds on continuous advances in basic and applied mRNA science, delivery technology and manufacturing, and has allowed the development of therapeutics and vaccines for infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, cardiovascular diseases and auto-immune diseases. Today, 24 development programs are underway across these therapeutic areas, with 14 programs having entered the clinic. Moderna has been named a top biopharmaceutical employer by Science for the past six years.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, including statements regarding Moderna's development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 (mRNA-1273), and an arrangement pursuant to which Thermo Fisher Scientific will provide fill/finish sterile manufacturing services, as well as labeling and packaging for the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, and the timing and scale for those services. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "may," "should," "could," "expects," "intends," "plans," "aims," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. The forward-looking statements in this press release are neither promises nor guarantees, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond Moderna's control and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statem...
(All Rights Reserved)