Highlights from R&D Day 2023 on How We Are Expanding the Field of mRNA Medicine
Moderna was founded and built to use nature’s information molecule, mRNA, to treat and prevent disease. The premise has always been that an mRNA-based approach to making medicine could advance at the pace of information, leveraging common science, technology, and infrastructure to create medicines addressing high unmet needs at unprecedented speed and efficiency.
Staying true to our mission, over the next five years we will continue to invest in science to expand the field of mRNA medicine into new frontiers. We expect to advance up to 50 new candidate medicines into clinical trials across established and new modalities.
We kicked off our seventh annual Research & Development Day yesterday by ringing the opening bell at NASDAQ. Our CEO Stéphane Bancel, President Stephen Hoge, M.D., and the Moderna clinical team then presented business and clinical updates from our franchises and introduced several new development programs. As we look ahead to up to 15 launches in the next five years, this is just the beginning of the mRNAge.
“Our mRNA platform is working. With significant momentum across the business and our pipeline, we are excited by the near future and focused on execution.”
- Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO
Here are some highlights from this year’s R&D Day.
Respiratory Franchise
Our respiratory franchise continues to advance efforts to develop multiple generations of single-virus and combination respiratory vaccines that address significant public health needs, including COVID-19, Influenza (flu) and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).
At R&D Day, we announced that its updated seasonal flu vaccine, mRNA-1010, met its primary endpoint in Phase 3 trial, and additional Phase 1/2 data demonstrated higher titers than comparators. Moderna’s respiratory franchise continues to advance rapidly with the RSV filing now complete, and full enrollment of the Phase 3 trial of mRNA-1283, our next-generation COVID-19 vaccine.
Oncology Franchise
The oncology franchise includes the individualized neoantigen therapy being developed in partnership with Merck, as well as Moderna’s checkpoint and triplet vaccines. The announced adjuvant indications for Phase 3 represent eligible population sizes of approximately 30,000 patients for Melanoma and 101,000 eligible patients for non-small cell lung cancer.
This week, we also announced a strategic research and development collaboration with Immatics N.V. to pioneer novel and transformative therapies for cancer patients with high unmet medical need. This broad multi-platform collaboration will leverage the deep scientific expertise and core operational capabilities of both companies, combining Immatics' TCR platform with Moderna's cutting-edge mRNA technology, and span various therapeutic modalities including bispecifics, cell therapy and cancer vaccines.
Rare Disease Franchise
Moderna’s rare disease portfolio, which includes therapies targeting methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), propionic acidemia (PA), glycogen storage disease (GSD1A) and Phenylketonuria (PKU) may represent a $10 billion market while also addressing significant unmet medical needs. We expect four rare disease product launches in the next five years.