Moderna’s bird flu vaccine could soon get funding from US government – The Boston Globe

Moderna is nearing a deal with the US government to fund a late-stage trial of its bird flu vaccine, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Millions of dollars of federal funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority could come as soon as next month, according to the report.

The Cambridge-based biotechnology company declined to share specifics but confirmed to the Globe that Moderna is in talks with the government and has finished testing a vaccine candidate on volunteers in a trial, with data expected soon. The vaccine appears to protect people from the bird flu variant that is circulating in the United States right now, according to Moderna.

We remain committed to using our mRNA platform to respond to public health concerns, the company said Thursday.

Moderna is the largest homegrown drug maker in Massachusetts by head count, with more than 4,400 employees in the state of as late 2023, the company has said.

The bird flu, which can be deadly, is an influenza virus that was initially discovered in the mid-1990s and became especially prominent in 2003, following a significant outbreak in poultry in China, according to previous Globe coverage. Human cases are not common and the public health risk is low, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC reports that 48 states have bird flu outbreaks in their poultry farms, which amounts to more than 92 million birds impacted by the virus.

Modernas potential agreement with the federal government comes as it faced a decline in COVID-19 vaccine sales and won a key battle in a vaccine patent dispute with Pfizer and BioNTech. The biotech giant faced loses of about $1.2 billion during the first quarter, according to its earnings report. It is now working on therapeutic vaccines to treat cancer, the Globe previously reported.

A timeline of the agreement has not yet been announced.

As of Thursday, Modernas share price had risen nearly 40 percent since the start of April.

Material from previous Globe coverage was used in this report. Staff writer Jonathan Saltzman contributed reporting.

Esha Walia can be reached at esha.walia@globe.com.

The rest is here:

Moderna's bird flu vaccine could soon get funding from US government - The Boston Globe