Moderna’s stock is riding high after news of a personalized cancer treatment, but CEO Stéphane Bancel is warning about a bigger threat: China’s state-backed push to challenge the U.S. in biotechnology.
In an interview on “Mornings with Maria” Monday, Bancel said that while Washington pulls back on mRNA funding, Beijing is pouring state money into biotechnology to challenge the U.S. Bancel said keeping drug manufacturing on American soil, including at Moderna’s facilities in Massachusetts, helps protect both U.S. patients and America’s lead in healthcare.
“I think the government has an active role to play in taking risk for really innovative medicine,” Bancel told FOX Business’ Cheryl Casone, “and indeed, if you think about what’s happening around the world, we know, for example, that in China there’s a lot of mRNA investments.”
“The technology has already proven itself during COVID with the vaccine, now with cancer, as I said, very soon in rare genetic disease, and I think that we want to make sure that there is investment because those investments in the long term help American patients,” he continued.
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The Chinese Communist Party has designated biotechnology as a “strategic emerging industry” and provided state financing and subsidies to support domestic firms as China seeks to dominate key parts of the biotechnology industry, according to the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last August that it would wind down nearly $500 million worth of mRNA vaccine development projects through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
HHS did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Instead of relying on foreign supply chains for pharmaceutical supplies and ingredients, Bancel said Moderna has countered this threat by expanding its manufacturing operations in Massachusetts, ensuring that advanced personalized medicines are engineered and produced on American soil.
“The team has done an amazing job to shrink the manufacturing process, the machines, because it’s the same technology that will make millions of doses in one reactor,” Bancel said. “It’s actually happening in America, in Massachusetts, in a factory that we built and that is ready to go.”
“In terms of cost, because it’s not using human material, like CAR-T cell therapy is a very expensive price because it’s a very expensive manufacturing process. In our case, it’s all used with enzyme[s], it’s in water, it is a very different thing. As we get the data and we get closer to discussing pricing, but we don’t have the very high cost of goods that the self-therapy products have.”
Moderna’s shares surged 177% on Aug. 19 after the company and Merck announced that their personalized mRNA treatment, combined with Merck’s Keytruda, met key endpoints in a Phase 3 melanoma trial, giving investors new evidence of mRNA’s potential beyond infectious-disease vaccines.
“If you look at the company since day one, we try to use our technology across many therapeutic areas: Infectious disease, vaccine of course, cancer,” Bancel noted. “So last week was a big step forward. We became an oncology company, but I think by the end of the year, we should also become a rare genetic disease company.”
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