Moderna and Flagship Pioneering: Noubar Afeyan

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2021

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the field of bio-tech, it can take 10 years and millions of dollars to see if an experimental idea might turn into a life-saving treatment—if it ever does. Noubar Afeyan fully understood those risks when he co-founded Moderna in 2010. He and his colleagues were looking for a way to deploy the messenger RNA molecule to tackle life-threatening diseases. In January of 2020, an urgent opportunity presented itself in the form of a deadly virus that was spreading across the globe. At a breathtaking pace, Moderna produced a prototype for a COVID-19 vaccine, partnered with the NIH to test it, and produced millions of doses, becoming part of the most rapid vaccine roll-out in human history. While Moderna is the best known of Noubar's companies, he has launched many others in the bio-tech space as part of Flagship Pioneering, his multi-billion dollar venture studio. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	When you leave home, can you ever really go back?
0:12.0	Made a version!
0:13.0	Soccer legend Leo Messi and I both left Argentina as kids.
0:17.0	You know you're that piece of a puzzle that doesn't fit anywhere.
0:20.0	To so many immigrants, football is a way to reconnect.
0:23.0	Listen to the last cop in the embedded podcast feed
0:26.0	to hear the latest collaboration from MPR and Fududo Studios.
0:33.0	The reality is when you have a pandemic and you're a public company
0:37.0	and you've got material data,
0:39.0	our sense was that we at least needed to add a high level, put that out there.
0:43.0	So in May, we indeed did come out and say at a very high level
0:47.0	that we had some encouraging results and people attacked us every which way
0:52.0	for having said that because they basically said well that's doing science by press release.
0:58.0	And so one of the things we learned because none of us have been in this situation before
1:03.0	was that we were going to get criticized no matter what we did.
1:09.0	From MPR, it's how I built this.
1:12.0	The show of innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists
1:15.0	and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:23.0	I'm Guy Raazan on the show today.
1:25.0	A new bar of fans understanding of risk led to a life-saving vaccine
	...

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