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Throughout2009 and 2010,Stéphane Bancel (MBA 2000) had received upward of 20 calls from biotech companies asking him to come aboard and lead the company. It made sense. He was a highly recruited CEO successfully running bioMérieux, a diagnostics company with 6,000 employees and sales reaching into the billions. Then one evening he got a call from Noubar Afeyan, managing partner and CEO of Flagship Ventures, a venture capital firm that started Moderna, asking Bancel to swing by the company's Boston office and take a look at the latest data coming in on their patented technology, messenger RNA (mRNA) Therapeutics.
In addition to guiding the Moderna team toward a long-term vision, Bancel is responsible for securing the funds to support the journey—ideally from investors who are on board with the mission, as well
Who is the best person to help us through the challenges?'" The answer to that question was Peter Barton Hutt, former chief counsel for the FDA and an expert on food and drug law, so they recruited him to join the board.
In March of 2013, AstraZeneca offered the company $240 million for the development and exclusive use of the mRNA technology to treat cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic diseases as well as cancer. "It is 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," according to the New York Times.Then, in October, the government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Moderna $25 million to develop mRNA to combat infectious diseases and biological threats.
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https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-bulletin.aspx?num=3170