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at #JPM16 – Moderna Therapeutics turns away an extra $200 million: with AstraZeneca (collaboration) & with Merck ($100 million investment)

Posted in Genome Biology, Immuno-Oncology & Genomics, Immunodiagnostics, Immunology, Immunotherapy, RNA Biology, RNA Biology, Cancer and Therapeutics, tagged and Moderna Therapeutics, AstraZeneca immuno-oncology mRNA therapeutics™ Merck, MedImmune on January 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

at #JPM16 – Moderna Therapeutics turns away an extra $200 million: with AstraZeneca (collaboration) & with Merck ($100 million investment)

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

per SOURCES quoted:

AstraZeneca, for one, has sent an important validating signal to outsiders by continuing to invest in 29 Moderna drug candidates at last count. The financial community can’t get enough. As ambitious as Moderna has been with a dream to disrupt conventional small molecule drugs and protein therapies, it recognizes it can only do so much. Moderna turned away an extra $200 million of investment that would have made its $500 million round a $700 million round. The company didn’t need that much. “It’s bizarre,” Bancel said. “I used to spend my time begging for money. Now I had to go to my board and say ‘We’re going to turn down $200 million.”

AstraZeneca and Moderna Therapeutics announce new collaboration to co-develop and co-commercialise immuno-oncology mRNA therapeutics™

PUBLISHED 11 January 2016

Moderna to lead preclinical development; AstraZeneca to lead clinical development; Moderna to co-commercialise and share profits on resulting products in the US

11 January 2016

AstraZeneca, along with its global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune, and Moderna Therapeutics today announced a new collaboration to discover, co-develop and co-commercialise messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutic candidates for the treatment of a range of cancers. The collaboration is in addition to the agreement announced by the companies in 2013 to develop mRNA Therapeutics™ for the treatment of cardiovascular, metabolic and renal diseases as well as selected targets in oncology.

The collaboration will combine MedImmune’s protein engineering and cancer biology expertise with Moderna’s mRNA platform. mRNA-based therapies are an innovative treatment approach that enables the body to produce therapeutic protein in vivo, opening up new treatment options for a wide range of diseases that cannot be addressed today using existing technologies.

Merck Joins Messenger RNA Frenzy, Betting $100M On Moderna Therapeutics

Luke Timmerman FORBES CONTRIBUTOR

I’m the founder and editor of Timmerman Report.

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Generations of scientists have known that messenger RNA plays a key role in carrying genetic information in cells, but thought the molecules themselves could never be drugs.

Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, just bet they can become drugs after all.

Moderna Therapeutics, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company that has taken the biotech industry by storm with a radical idea for messenger RNA therapies, is announcing today it has secured a big vote of confidence from a company with a reputation for doing rigorous science. Merck has agreed to make a $50 million upfront cash payment to Moderna for the rights to use its mRNA technology to develop as many as five vaccines and treatments against infectious diseases over the next three years. Merck is also making a $50 million equity investment in closely held Moderna. That new shot of $100 million means Moderna has raised a stunning $500 million in private investment this month alone, and it has scooped up a grand total of more than $1 billion from investors and partners in less than five years.