BARDA awards £387 million to Moderna Inc. to ramp-up development of COVID-19 vaccine

With Coronavirus rapidly taking the world under its grip, several healthcare companies from across the globe are working committedly to test vaccine candidates and develop an effective vaccine against the flu-like virus.

On Thursday, Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA) said that the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) awarded £387 million in grant to the company to ramp-up the development of its prospect vaccine for COVID-19.

Moderna Expects Mid-Stage Trials To Begin In The Second Quarter

The U.S-based biotechnology company says trial for its experimental vaccine is currently in the early-stage and is being undertaken in collaboration with the U.S National Institutes of Health (NIH). Mid-stage trial, Moderna added, is expected to begin in the second quarter.

The late-stage trial, as per the company, will be based on directions from the U.S regulators and findings of the early and mid-stage trials. If promising results are produced, late-stage trial can be expected to begin in fall of 2020.

Moderna is calling its candidate vaccine, mRNA-1273. The company also expressed gratitude in its statement on Thursday for BARDA’s funding that will help a great deal in mRNA-1273 clinical development program. The financing, according to Moderna, will also help scale-up the production of its prospect vaccine in 2020.

To accelerate the development of the vaccine, Moderna said, it is launching a recruitment cycle that will bring 150 new members to the team in the U.S.

So far, Moderna is taking the lead in the pharmaceutical industry for development of an effective vaccine for COVID-19. The biotechnology company’s candidate vaccine is the first one that has been tested in humans.

Moderna’s Candidate Vaccine Is Based On Synthetic Messenger RNA

Moderna’s candidate vaccine is based on synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) that is inoculated in the body to fight against the Coronavirus. Such treatments are known to be effective in developing immunity in a human body against the virus and are also developed and manufactured significantly faster than other traditional vaccines.

Following the announcement, Moderna was reported trading 20% up in after-hours trading on Thursday. At £37 per share, the health company is currently 140% up year to date in the stock market.

Its performance in 2020 is significantly better than last year when the stock recorded an annual gain of around 25%.

At the time of writing, Moderna has a market cap of £12 billion.