Only one candidate from this partnership has passed Phase I trials, AZD8601, a regenerative medicine treatment which encodes vascular endothelial growth factor A to stimulate blood vessel growth for patients with myocardial ischemia undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery with moderately impaired systolic function. The agreement included a $240 million upfront payment to Moderna, "one of the largest ever initial payments in a pharmaceutical industry licensing deal that does not involve a drug already being tested in clinical trials". In March 2013, Moderna and AstraZeneca signed a five-year exclusive option agreement to discover, develop, and commercialize mRNA for treatments in the therapeutic areas of cardiovascular, metabolic, and renal diseases, and selected targets for cancer. In December 2012, the company raised $40 million. Within 2 years of its founding, the company reached a unicorn valuation. In 2011, Afeyan, the largest shareholder of Moderna, hired Stéphane Bancel, previously an executive at BioMérieux and Eli Lilly and Company, as CEO. Together they founded "ModeRNA Therapeutics", named from the combined terms "modified" and "RNA" that just happens to contain "modern". Chien, Bob Langer, and Venture Studio Flagship Ventures, run by Noubar Afeyan. Springer, who solicited co-investment from Kenneth R. In 2010, Rossi approached fellow Harvard University faculty member Timothy A.
Rossi developed a method of modifying mRNA first via transfection into human cells, then dedifferentiating it into bone marrow stem cells which could then be further differentiated into desired target cell types. In 2007, Rossi set out to build on their findings as a new assistant professor at Harvard Medical School running his own lab. In 2005, Derrick Rossi, a 39-year-old postdoctoral fellow in stem cell biology at Stanford University, studied a paper by Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó on RNA-mediated immune activation and her co-discovery with American immunologist Drew Weissman of the nucleoside modifications that suppress the immunogenicity of RNA. The company's pipeline also includes candidates for cancer immunotherapy using OX40 ligand, interleukin 23, I元6G, and interleukin 12 as well as, in partnership with AstraZeneca, a regenerative medicine treatment that encodes vascular endothelial growth factor A to stimulate blood vessel growth for patients with myocardial ischemia. Vaccine candidates include influenza, HIV, respiratory syncytial virus, Epstein–Barr virus, the Nipah virus, chikungunya, a combined single-shot COVID-19 booster and influenza vaccine, a cytomegalovirus vaccine, and two cancer vaccines. The company has 23 treatment and vaccine candidates, of which 15 have entered clinical trials. The company's only commercial product is the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. These vaccines use a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce an immune response. Moderna, Inc., ( / m ə ˈ d ɜːr n ə/ mə- DUR-nə) is an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines.