Moderna and Institut Pasteur Sign Strategic Research Collaboration to Advance mRNA Vaccines for Infectious Diseases
核心洞察
Moderna Therapeutics (搜索) and the Institut Pasteur announced a long-term strategic research collaboration on February 3, 2015, to develop mRNA-based drugs and vaccines for infectious diseases (搜索).
Valera (搜索), a Moderna venture company focused on infectious disease prevention and treatment, will manage the collaboration and sponsor preclinical and clinical research programs at Institut Pasteur.
The partnership aims to combat known and emerging viral and bacterial diseases using Moderna's mRNA Therapeutics platform, which produces proteins and antibodies inside patient cells.
Moderna Therapeutics (搜索), a pioneer in the development of messenger RNA (mRNA) Therapeutics, and the Institut Pasteur, a recognized public benefit organization at the forefront of biomedical research, announced on February 3, 2015, a long-term strategic research collaboration for the discovery and development of drugs and vaccines using Moderna's mRNA Therapeutics platform. The partnership, spanning Cambridge, Massachusetts and Paris, France, will be managed by Valera (搜索), a Moderna venture company focused exclusively on the advancement of vaccines and therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of viral, bacterial and parasitic infectious diseases (搜索).
Under the agreement, Valera (搜索) will sponsor programs of preclinical and clinical research at the Institut Pasteur aimed at identifying and developing new approaches to combatting known and emerging viral and bacterial diseases.
"We look forward to collaborating with Valera (搜索) and to using Moderna's mRNA platform to discover and develop new vaccines and treatments to address infectious diseases (搜索) in an entirely new way. This partnership will be a trump card in our fight against viral and bacterial disease," said Pr Christian Bréchot, president of the Institut Pasteur.
Stephane Bancel, president and CEO of Moderna, emphasized the significance of the collaboration: "We are very honored to be working with the Institute that Monsieur Louis Pasteur started more than 125 years ago in Paris. He is the father of the modern fight against infectious disease. Through our partnership with the Institut Pasteur, we will work with world-class researchers and clinicians who will be critical allies as we strive to develop a transformative approach to fighting infectious diseases (搜索) for patients throughout the world."
Bancel further noted that the agreement builds on Moderna's strategy of partnering with leaders in critical fields of medicine, citing collaborations with AstraZeneca, Alexion, Merck and DARPA, as well as a recently announced collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet, to advance the development of mRNA-based drugs and vaccines across multiple therapeutic areas.
The mRNA Therapeutics Platform
Valera (搜索) leverages Moderna's messenger RNA Therapeutics platform, described as an entirely new in vivo drug technology that produces human proteins, antibodies and entirely novel protein constructs inside patient cells, which are in turn secreted or active intracellularly.
Expanding Access for Global Health
In a related development, the Institut Pasteur and Moderna have signed a Master Material Transfer Agreement (MMTA) to enable researchers of the Institut Pasteur to access Moderna's preclinical manufacturing capabilities and its research and development expertise. The objective is to jointly explore the possibility of mRNA to tackle the world's greatest global public health threats.
Through this program, Institut Pasteur researchers will be able to use Moderna's mRNA production capabilities to explore novel antigen designs and accelerate vaccine development. Moderna allows its partners to take advantage of the flexibility afforded by their platform to develop novel mRNA medicines for emerging and neglected infectious diseases (搜索).
About the Institut Pasteur
Louis Pasteur created the Institut Pasteur in 1887 as a private non-profit foundation that rapidly became world-renowned for its biomedical research. The main aim of the Institut Pasteur is understanding and preventing diseases throughout the world through excellent scientific and public health research, teaching and other activities. The Institut Pasteur devotes a large part of its efforts to infectious diseases (搜索), inherited disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers. Close to 2,400 people work on its main campus in Paris, which sits at the heart of an international network of 32 research institutes on five continents. Over the years, 10 Institut Pasteur researchers have received the Nobel Prize.