Noubar Afeyan is probably not well known outside of entrepreneur and investor circles, but in the last year one of his companies has become world famous.
Afeyan is a co-founder of Moderna , one of the pioneering companies in the development of the novel messenger RNA (mRNA) technology , used in some of the vaccines against l a covid – 19 .
But Moderna is only one of tens of start – ups in whose creation this doctor in biomedical engineering graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, for its acronym in English) and inventor of more than 100 patents that, according to the magazine Forbes , accumulate a personal fortune of $ 2, 341 million dollars.
Moderna was born and incubated by Flagship Pioneering, a company founded by Afeyan that is dedicated to developing scientific innovations that then serve as the basis for the creation of start – ups , which has led to the development of more than a hundred enterprises.
Born in Lebanon to Armenian parents, Afeyan had to emigrate to Canada as a teenager to escape the civil war.
In his conversation with BBC Mundo he spoke about the covid vaccine – and the possible temporary release of their patents (an initiative that the United States decided to support this Wednesday, a few days after this interview).
- USA. supports the release of patents on covid vaccines – 19 so that other countries can produce them
He also addressed the future of messenger RNA technology to prevent or cure not only viral infections, but also diseases such as cancer.
Below is the text of the conversation, which was summarized and edited for reasons of space and understanding.
Recently, around a hundred countries led by India and South Africa requested to other members of the World Trade Organization who accept a temporary lifting of intellectual property related to covid – to accelerate the end of the pandemic. What is your position?
I am glad you asked this because what the world and these organizations apparently did not know is that last October we publicly declared that we would not voluntarily demand the compliance with any of our patents during the pandemic to anyone making a vaccine. Period.
Moderna is the only company that has declared it publicly. And we did that in October. So when they asked to allow the use of the patent, we were certainly already in that position and invited everyone else to join the same initiative. We cannot imagine companies enforcing their patents during a pandemic.
People are interested in more than that, they basically want companies to teach others to make their product and to transfer technology , and there are complications with that that we, like others, are well aware of.
This (the mRNA one) is a completely new technology. It is not as if we could give a prescription and that with it the vaccine can be made very easily.
But, from the point of view of intellectual property, we have broken down any barrier so that it can be used during the pandemic since October.
So, all countries can use their technology. But is there any kind of agreement that goes beyond that you do not enforce your intellectual property rights?
We have made this available not only to countries, but for companies.
There are many companies that currently manufacture mRNA vaccines that would need the intellectual property that Moderna has developed during 10 years. Two years ago there was no one working on mRNA as a vaccine of the type that we make and now, obviously, several companies are making it.
I think you don’t need an agreement if you have a kind of voluntary declaration that that is our position. We have taken that position and welcome others to join.
You made an early bet on messenger RNA technology at a time when there were many unknowns. why?
I have to say that because of the way my company, Flagship Pioneering, we are actually involved in developing the inventions that led to the formation de Moderna.
Initially it was called LS 18, because it was the eighteenth project of this type that we carried out. Much of the initial scientific work was done as part of a broader effort and then we developed the company.
The bet was both scientific and intellectual as well as financial, to get the company established and grown.
What was attractive was the possibility of, although people thought it impossible, to be able to develop a molecule like messenger RNA that would serve as a medicine.
We had a idea of what the chemical difficulties would be and it turns out there were even more, but we also had the feeling that we could overcome them through the ingenuity and hard work of our teams.
In fact, we overcame them and For nine years we developed a completely new technological platform that allowed us to be able to manufacture not only a drug but, by last year, we already had almost 20 different types of mRNA molecules that had already been prepared days to be tested in different trials as drugs or as a vaccine.
Initially, in , vaccines were not one of Moderna’s main focuses. What happened?
That’s right. We started about 10 years and at that time we didn’t even have a bulb. We thought it could be used for many different things.
At first, when we started working on animals, the easiest thing was to try to give a piece of mRNA to the mouse’s body and have it produce a drug , a protein. The effect of that drug was seen immediately.
But vaccines are a very different type of medicine, because they produce something that then makes the body respond and its effect can only be seen over time , when infection is avoided. It’s an indirect way of testing the technology.
So the reason we didn’t think about vaccines at first was because we really wanted to show that it was possible to achieve a therapeutic effect right away. So we worked on several so-called biological drugs.
After the first few years building the platform, we started to realize that vaccines were a particularly interesting use for our technology, because you only need to administer them once or twice. And then you don’t have to give them out for a long time.
Since the technology was new, we thought this might be the most easily scalable way in terms of size and how quickly we could move forward in its medical use. So we started working on vaccines, probably on 2013.
On 2014 We started testing many different vaccines and in now (to do trials) in humans.
The CEO of BioNTech (another company that uses messenger RNA) recently confirmed that his vaccine against the covid – 19 you will need a third injection as a booster. In the case of Moderna, I read that they were preparing a new version to combat the new variants. How is that process going?
A couple of months ago we already said what BioNTech announced now, that we started working on vaccine variants, as well as the potential of a third booster of our vaccine , because we just don’t know which way this virus is going and we need to be prepared for whatever path it may take.
So we wanted to see what a third booster of the same vaccine would look like and what a third would look like reinforcement for a variant, in particular, for the South African variant.
Also, and we are unique in this, we are testing a reinforcement with a combination of both that works for both the current variant and the new one .
Early animal test data has been encouraging for this combination and we hope to have data on its results in humans shortly.
Now, it is important to understand that this (the need for backup) is not unusual for a virus of this type. Think flu, get a yearly vaccine.
That’s what a booster is all about. And it is largely due to the fact that our immunity begins to decrease a little and if the virus mutates into a stronger variant, we must be able to keep up with it.
After the success of the covid vaccine – 19, what is the future you envision for this messenger RNA technology?
From the beginning we envision a wide set of uses ranging from much better cancer drugs to drugs for cardiovascular diseases or autoimmune diseases.
We believe that we can make many biotech drugs in this particular way . What the covid vaccine example – 19 really showed the world is that we can produce and administer an mRNA drug.
Now, the interesting thing is that the mRNA medicine is essentially a code. In other words, it is a set of letters that, if you change one, it generates a different protein.
So the difference between making one vaccine versus another is just a code substitution, and that is is the same for when you are manufacturing a biotech drug. We think it can be applied very quickly.
That was what allowed them to quickly have the first vaccine candidate against the covid – 19…
Yes, we did the first. Two days after the sequence of this virus was made public, we already had the sequence and design of our vaccine.
This was in January, more than a year ago and by March, we had already prepared and delivered to the National Institutes of Health our first doses of vaccine to be tested in humans, which began in mid-March. That’s a two-month period from basic sequence to human testing.
I think the boost goes even faster and that’s a very positive thing. In general, the ability to do this in a very direct and fast way is important when it comes to saving lives.
And what are the limits of this technology? Is there a risk that it could be used in any way co ethics?
With almost any technology you have to ask exactly that question and this is no different: we have to safeguard biotechnology from harmful uses.
In this sense, it is actively cooperating with governments to ensure that the sequences that are being made do not have dangerous purposes. There is a self-reporting system for all producers to monitor the sequences that are being encoded.
The other thing you have to do is rigorous clinical trials, in the most transparent way and according to approved standards, to make sure that by trying to help people you do not inadvertently cause safety problems.
The two ways it could be dangerous are: one, intentional; another, accidental; And in both cases, we have ways to mitigate it.
Some people talk about the “messenger RNA revolution”. What kind of projects do you have in preparation?
We have around 20 medicines. Some of them could work as therapeutics, and others are vaccines that are already in human trials or that are moving towards them.
For example, against a serious viral infection called cytomegalovirus (CMV), we have an advanced clinical trial. We are working on RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), on Zika.
We also believe that we can find a much better vaccine against influenza. We are working very quickly to see if we can have it ready for a combined administration.
So can you imagine (that there will be) in the future the flu vaccine along with a coronavirus vaccine, which will be administered as an annual booster shot.
We are also working on other different things, on cancer, on autoimmune diseases.
There are many rare genetic disorders for which we believe that mRNA may offer hope and solution.
Will we be able to cure cancer with a messenger RNA vaccine?
Cancer is not only one thing, so talking about curing it would be too simplistic.
We believe that we will certainly be able to counteract cancer and minimize its negative effects on health
It is interesting that there are approaches towards cancer-oriented vaccines, which is quite unusual because generally vaccines are for viruses, not for a human disease.
We believe there are ways to do this and we have an active clinical trial on the cancer vaccine.
It will still take three years to fully test what the result will look like. But, the good news is that we can test it quite effectively and quickly.
I think, given the severity of these diseases, we should do it.
So is having a cancer vaccine a real possibility?
It’s something we’re working on, but I want to make sure your audience understands that I don’t know It is about a single vaccine against cancer.
It turns out that to make a vaccine against cancer, you must make it specifically for each patient, because each patient’s tumor is different. Each patient has their own sequence of changes that must be presented to the body in order for the immune system to pursue them.
So, when we say cancer vaccine it seems that there is going to be an injection and that is not what what is going to happen.
What will happen, if it works, is that individualized vaccines will be made for each patient that will reflect their particular cancer.
It is a quite complicated process, but we are already in a phase 1 clinical trial; that is, that idea is being tested as we speak.
U You are an immigrant and seem to believe in the skills to undertake of immigrants. Why does believe it ?
What do immigrants do? They leave the familiar and go into the unknown. They leave what is comfortable, they leave what they know in terms of language, customs, rules, etc; and they expose themselves, sometimes by force, sometimes by choice, to a very uncertain and unknown environment.
Then, they struggle to learn to adapt more and to be able to fit in. And in doing so, they usually get used to not taking many things for granted.
If you now look at what innovation is all about, you will see that it consists of leaving your comfort, leaving where you consider yourself advantageous and expose yourself to the discomfort of trying something new. People make fun of you, as they make fun of the accent of immigrants.
Being an entrepreneur simply means innovating and trying to create value. I think that the mentality of an immigrant who has already fought and made a journey is certainly an advantage since this mentality (of innovation) is not strange to them.
But that does not mean that you have to be an immigrant to be a successful entrepreneur because basically you just have to have that mindset. You have to be ready to survive, fight and try to try to reach your goal.
So, yes, I think the immigrant experience helps. Personally, I feel that this is the case and many hundreds of others that I know, who are involved in innovation and entrepreneurship, have a similar experience.
I think it is one of the areas in which immigrants have a advantage.
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