> I am also concerned that Moderna has never produced ANY drug beyond the third stage before.
Have there been a lot of disease outbreaks preventable with an mRNA vaccine before? To make a product, you need customers. Whatever research we did to deal with SARS and MERS became moot when people stopped spreading the diseases; maybe Moderna could have delivered a vaccine, but there would have been no customers because other containment measures limited the spread.
My outsider impression of Moderna is that they had all the technology ready to deal with something like COVID-19, but there was no COVID-19 until now.
The fact that Pfizer/BioNTech independently produced a similar product on a similar timeframe is a pretty good indication that the technology was ready, and was just waiting for a market.
Have there been a lot of disease outbreaks preventable with an mRNA vaccine before? To make a product, you need customers. Whatever research we did to deal with SARS and MERS became moot when people stopped spreading the diseases; maybe Moderna could have delivered a vaccine, but there would have been no customers because other containment measures limited the spread.
My outsider impression of Moderna is that they had all the technology ready to deal with something like COVID-19, but there was no COVID-19 until now.
The fact that Pfizer/BioNTech independently produced a similar product on a similar timeframe is a pretty good indication that the technology was ready, and was just waiting for a market.