Times are strange at Moderna
Just nine months ago, conversations about Moderna were limited to the insular world of biotech, where one could safely debate the company’s underlying science and fluctuant valuation. Today, the 10-year-old startup is a headline name around the world, which is good for the stock price but also brings protest, Facebook disinformation, and other surrealities not common among biotech startups.
On Friday, a group called Free the Vaccine staged a small but musical protest outside Moderna’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., demanding the company charge less for its Covid-19 vaccine on account of how much public funding went into its development. Then came a viral Facebook post that claimed, among other things, that Anthony Fauci was Moderna’s first CEO, that George Soros founded the company, and that Jeffrey Epstein was among its investors. (None of that is true, and Reuters has a more thorough debunking, if that’s helpful.)
Neither development has any bearing on Moderna’s stated mission of turning messenger RNA into medicines, but each illustrates just how strange 2020 has been for the company. Employees accustomed to the relative anonymity of biotech might now have to commute around protesters and explain to a gullible uncle that they aren’t, in fact, in the Illuminati. Things will get that much more interesting if Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine actually works.
On Friday, a group called Free the Vaccine staged a small but musical protest outside Moderna’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., demanding the company charge less for its Covid-19 vaccine on account of how much public funding went into its development. Then came a viral Facebook post that claimed, among other things, that Anthony Fauci was Moderna’s first CEO, that George Soros founded the company, and that Jeffrey Epstein was among its investors. (None of that is true, and Reuters has a more thorough debunking, if that’s helpful.)
Neither development has any bearing on Moderna’s stated mission of turning messenger RNA into medicines, but each illustrates just how strange 2020 has been for the company. Employees accustomed to the relative anonymity of biotech might now have to commute around protesters and explain to a gullible uncle that they aren’t, in fact, in the Illuminati. Things will get that much more interesting if Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine actually works.
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