Fortune: How Armenian-American biotech investor is taking on Covid-19May 19, 2020 - 15:33 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Fortune has unveiled a new article about Noubar Afeyan, founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, a Cambridge, Mass-based biotech incubator, and how the Armenian-American investor is taking on Covid-19. At a time when the world is just waking up to all the ways in which the planet was woefully ill-prepared for a new, highly-contagious pathogen and the global pandemic it has wrought, Afeyan is thinking about the technology that will prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again: “a pathogen defense shield,” the says. “You don't wait until there is an all-out pandemic to come up with a vaccine or a treatment,” Afeyan has said at a recent episode of Fortune’s "Leadership Next" podcast. “You put in place surveillance. You put in place rapid response. You put in place production capacity, [so] that as soon as you have something, [it] very quickly can be produced.” Flagship Pioneering currently has nine entities working on various ways to fight Covid-19, from companies that are using AI machine learning to help in the hunt for effective therapeutics, to others that are “computationally designing antibodies against the virus” or developing sophisticated at-home antibody tests. The most high-profile of Flagship’s portfolio companies’ efforts, however, is that of Moderna Therapeutics, whose experimental Covid-19 vaccine candidate—made using the company’s messenger RNA platform technology—is out front in the global pharma race. On Monday, May 18, the Cambridge-based biotech reported an early success: the first 45 volunteers who had received the company’s vaccine all developed antibodies to the virus. Moderna, which has 15 non-COVID clinical development programs but no drugs yet approved, is hoping to start pivotal late stage vaccine trials this summer, aiming to file a new drug application later this year or 2021, says Afeyan. He notes that while there are challenges, like securing raw materials and scaling production, the company is working through them. If the vaccine is successful, Afeyan believes Moderna can produce one billion doses annually. Top stories Six total incidents have burned 19 old-growth trees. Friday night 8 trees were torched along the beautiful main entrance. The EU does not intend to conduct military exercises with Armenia, Lead Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano says. Hikmet Hajiyev has said that there is no place for USAID operation in Azerbaijan any longer. A telephone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan before the CSTO summit is not planned, Peskov says. Partner news | Ucom equips four bus stops in Ijevan with free Wi-Fi Ucom now provides free Wi-Fi coverage in smart bus stops in four communities of Ijevan. Armenia, Russia discuss life extension of Metsamor nuclear plant Issues regarding the extension of life of the 2nd power unit of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant were discussed in Yerevan. Armenians stage more campaigns against territorial concessions to Azerbaijan Protesters blocked more roads across Armenia on Friday, April 26 in continuing attempts to scuttle territorial concessions to Azerbaijan. Czech-Armenian military cooperation discussed in Yerevan A delegation led by the Director General for the Industrial Cooperation Division of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic visited Armenia. |