Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel said he wants to take his company’s mRNA vaccine manufacturing to every continent in the world, Reuters reported. “We’re talking to a couple more countries, because I would really like on every continent to have mRNA capacity,” Bancel said during a panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland.
Moderna, which has rapidly advanced from a little-known Massachusetts-based clinical stage company to a dominant player in the global vaccine market over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, is planning overseas expansions of its mRNA vaccine-making capacity.In August 2021, Moderna signed a memorandum of understanding with the Canadian government to build a “state-of-the-art messenger RNA” vaccine-manufacturing facility.
The goal, according to the company, is to make sure Canada can activate the site and secure “direct access to rapid pandemic response capabilities” in the event of a “future pandemic.” A similar agreement was signed in March 2022 between Moderna and the government of Australia. As part of the partnership, Moderna will build vaccine factories in Melbourne and Victoria to provide Australians with a portfolio of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, seasonal influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and other potential respiratory viruses.