00:00I worry deeply about bioterrorism, and science does not lie, the data does not lie.
00:05You could have something really bad happen in Europe, and there is no industrial base to go and fight it.
00:15Welcome to The Big Question, the show from Euronews, where we speak to some of the biggest names in industry.
00:22I'm Maret Gouin, and today I'm joined by the CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel.
00:28Stéphane, really good to have you with us.
00:29Thank you so much for having me.
00:31Our viewers will recognize Moderna most from the COVID-19 vaccine, the spike vax.
00:38And of course, this mRNA technology came to light for many people back then.
00:43Could you maybe remind our viewers what it is and what makes it so different to legacy systems?
00:48mRNA is a molecule that you have, I have in every one of our cells.
00:52That's how we live.
00:53It's also how plant lives, how animal lives.
00:55It's basically the basic principle of biology.
00:58It just carries the instruction of how to make a protein.
01:02What we discovered as a company is how to make this into a medicine.
01:06So we can inject in your body an mRNA made in a factory, but totally similar to what you have
01:12in your body, to make a medicine with that mRNA, to give instruction to your cells so it can help
01:17you fight cancer or fight a virus.
01:20Or give you the instruction if you have a genetic disease that you're missing from your parents in your DNA
01:25to get you a protein so you can live a normal life.
01:28We started the company and then went public on this belief that mRNA is a very powerful technology and that
01:35over time we should be able to make medicine in many pharaptic areas.
01:40Cancer, infectious disease, rare genetic disease and more.
01:43COVID happened and so we took a little detour which is trying to do our duty to help people.
01:48And then we basically since then went back onto mission, which is we are now great data in cancer.
01:55We have data coming into rare genetic disease.
01:57And so there's a lot of things where the platform is coming to life now.
02:07The concept of vaccines in oncology is something that for many of you has proved quite incredible to think about.
02:14Can you tell us a bit more about your vision for the future and how Moderna can play a role
02:18in this?
02:19Sure.
02:19So in vaccines we are doing two different things.
02:21So let's start first with treatment.
02:22So we are developing an individualized treatment based on mRNA just for you.
02:28So we make a different molecule for every patient.
02:32And what this medicine does, this mRNA medicine, it goes into your immune system and basically teaches your immune system
02:39the signature of your cancer cell so that your immune system can go eat your cancer.
02:44So now we have five years worth of data showing a huge impact compared to the best medicine available for
02:50skin cancer.
02:51The second thing is a new product for people that have Lynch syndrome.
02:55So Lynch syndrome is a disease, it's a genetic disease, and it's very, very frequent.
03:00It's one in 300 people.
03:02Think about it.
03:03It's around 1.8 million people in Europe.
03:05It's a lot of people that have Lynch syndrome.
03:07So basically you have in your DNA instructions for the protein that go fix your DNA.
03:14As you know, in your cells around your lifetime, you're going to make a lot of new cells in your
03:19body.
03:19And those cells sometimes make errors.
03:22It would be like if you type on your typewriter on your computer, you're going to make spelling mistake, right?
03:26And so we have protein in our DNA that go and repair DNA to repair the editing of our DNA.
03:32Well, some people have mutation in those protein that repair the DNA.
03:37So as you age, you have more and more mistake, mutation, happening in your DNA, leading to you getting cancer.
03:44If you are a Lynch syndrome patient, your chance of having cancer almost double compared to somebody who has not
03:50Lynch syndrome.
03:51And so what we're doing there is really a vaccine to prevent the cancer.
03:55So this is cancer-preventing vaccine, really.
03:57And do you see this as, for the company, quite crucial?
04:02Because obviously we know that after that kind of COVID boom, there has been kind of a fall in stocks.
04:08And the kind of prospects haven't been as good for Moderna.
04:11Do you see that changing due to these kind of developments?
04:13Yes.
04:14And as I said, we're kind of going on pre-pandemic strategy, which is we have now four infectious disease
04:19vaccines approved by European regulators.
04:22We have more in phase three that should get data this year in 2026.
04:27And we have a lot of products like the Lynch syndrome products.
04:30So we're diversifying the portfolio.
04:31We're going back into sales growth this year.
04:34I mean, with COVID, what happened?
04:35We knew it was going to happen.
04:37We always expected our sales to drop a lot after the pandemic because the pandemic was not normal times.
04:43It was wartime, right, against the virus.
04:46And so we always anticipated the sales to drop.
04:48But then the whole portfolio and the strength of a platform to allow to grow the sales again.
04:53That's what we're doing this year.
04:54Stefan, you are a European CEO of a major American pharmaceutical company.
05:00We know that there is more kind of vaccine skepticism among very senior figures in the Trump administration.
05:08How does that impact your work?
05:11So, of course, it impacts our work in the sense that we come every day to the office to do
05:15great products, to help people.
05:17So, when you hear those things, sometimes to some of our colleagues, it's demotivating.
05:22But at the end of the day, what we do is science.
05:24And science does not lie.
05:25The data does not lie.
05:27We know that people are going to get hospitalized and are going to die today of flu infection, of COVID
05:34infection, of RSI infection.
05:36And our job, our duty to society is to make products to prevent those.
05:40Vaccine is one of the best medical tools we have.
05:43It prevents disease.
05:44Can you tell us what is Moderna's footprint in Europe and also about whether you feel that the EU is
05:52getting it right when it comes to putting in the right conditions for innovation, like the innovation that you're exploring
05:59to happen in the EU as well?
06:01So, I think Europe needs to really figure out a way to get more resilient in terms of local manufacturing
06:07and technology access to mRNA.
06:10You know, the company BioNTech, we did a great job during the pandemic, just announced a few weeks ago that
06:15they are closing their manufacturing infrastructure in Germany.
06:19So, if you look at it today on continental Europe, there is no mRNA manufacturing capacity.
06:25And so, what we are trying to do at Moderna is to work with the European Union, trying to work
06:29with sovereign governments around Europe to figure out how could we do a partnership like we have done in Canada
06:36or in the UK or in Australia.
06:38Because we think it's important for Europe to have mRNA on its own.
06:41Because we know that there's an issue and a real concern when it comes to what they call strategic autonomy.
06:46And this applies to the pharmaceutical sector.
06:49Would you say that Europe is any better prepared now than it was back in 2019, 2020?
06:57So, there's things that have happened, like this setup of HERA, which is an institution to help do pandemic preparedness.
07:04So, things have happened.
07:05The piece that I think is a gap today is the lack of industrial base.
07:09There is going to be no mRNA capacity in Europe, and that's bad for peacetime, when there is no pandemic,
07:17but also during wartime, when there might be a pandemic.
07:19Again, either nature-made or man-made.
07:23I worry deeply about bioterrorism.
07:26You can develop for very cheap today a virus in your garage and spread it into Europe.
07:31If you think about all the bad actors that exist, either government-bad actors or groups that are set up
07:38that are not linked to government,
07:40you could have something really bad happen in Europe, and there is no industrial base to go and fight it.
07:45Indeed.
07:45Stefan Monsell, thank you so much for joining us on The Big Question.
07:48Thank you.
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