STAT+: Moderna co-founder Kenneth Chien on the future of mRNA — and Moderna
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- Kenneth Chien, Moderna co-founder with a 50-year science career, received an Hermes belt from CEO Stéphane Bancel in 2013 for helping secure the Moderna-AstraZeneca partnership
- The AstraZeneca partnership accelerated Moderna's ascent, delivering billions in funding and serving as a precursor to Moderna's mRNA Covid vaccines
- Through the deal, AstraZeneca planned to develop up to 40 mRNA-based drugs targeting cancer and cardiovascular disease
- Those 40 planned mRNA medicines never materialized despite the partnership's financial success and the Covid vaccine breakthrough
- The Hermes belt gift from Bancel — one of biotech's more style-conscious CEOs — illustrates the personal chemistry that helped close the transformative 2013 deal
Why it matters: The gap between Moderna's Covid vaccine triumph and the 40 unrealized mRNA drugs highlights how a single product breakthrough can obscure a broader pipeline failure. For AstraZeneca, Moderna investors, and pharma partners evaluating mRNA's reach beyond Covid, the unfulfilled drug pipeline is the measure of the platform's real promise.
