Wow, 2015 starts in a rush for the biotech industry. Moderna Therapeutics, Boston-based company led by French co-founding CEO Stephan Bancel just raised $450M (€380M) in VC investment. According to The Wall Street Journal, it is the largest VC-Investment ever made in a Biotech company.
Moderna was founded only in 2011 and is an awesome company growing extremely rapidly. It develops an mRNA Therapeutics platform aiming to revolutionize drug development. Instead of producing a chemical or producing the protein, and then inject it to you, Moderna injects mRNA that will lead your body to produce your own medicine in a very specific and precise way. In July 2014, I visited the company and interviewed Bancel for LaBiotech Tour Boston. Here is the interview:
Moderna really impressed me and is clearly one of the best Biotech companies I have ever seen. This new round of capital will allow Moderna to hire 100 more employees and develop its 45 pre-human drug programs. The goal being to launch 100 different medicines within the decade. A new Biotech giant to be born?