How Moderna Went From Coronavirus Sequence to a Phase-1-Ready Vaccine Candidate in 42 Days

Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), one of the leaders in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, was able to take the initial coronavirus sequence and get a vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, ready for a phase 1 clinical trial in just 42 days.

The biotech's use of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud-based computing service run by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), enabled this quick development. Moderna runs its Drug Design Studio on AWS, which allows it to design its mRNA drug candidates quickly.

The potential drugs are further analyzed using machine learning to optimize the sequence for manufacturing. And with Moderna's manufacturing systems running on AWS, converting the vaccine sequences to physical mRNA vaccine candidates ready for preclinical testing was a straightforward process.

Source Fool.com