On Feb. 24, 2020, Moderna announced it had released the first batch of mRNA-1273, the Company’s vaccine against the novel coronavirus, for human use. Vials of mRNA-1273 had been shipped to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to be used in the planned Phase 1 study in the U.S.

mRNA-1273 is an mRNA vaccine against the novel coronavirus encoding for a prefusion stabilized form of the Spike (S) protein, which was selected by Moderna in collaboration with investigators at the NIAID Vaccine Research Center (VRC). Manufacture of this batch was funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

The Company’s manufacturing plant in Norwood, MA manufactures Moderna’s portfolio of mRNA development candidates, including vaccines and therapeutics. To date, the Company had produced and released more than 100 batches from its Norwood site for human clinical trials. mRNA-1273 is part of the Company’s core prophylactic vaccines modality, which had six positive Phase 1 clinical readouts across six different vaccines over the past four years.