The Messenger: Moderna, the Vaccine, and the Business Gamble That Changed the World
Peter Loftus
Jul 2022 · Gildan Media · Narrated by Mike Lenz
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10 hr 30 min
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About this audiobook
The story of the biotech unicorn in the right place, at the right time, with the right technology.
At the start of 2020, Moderna was a waning biotech unicorn, still years away from delivering its first product despite a decade of development of a potentially breakthrough innovation: using RNA to combat disease. Investors were getting antsy or, worse, skeptical.
Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and Moderna became a central player in a global drama—a David to pharma's Goliaths—turning its technology toward breaking the global grip of the terrible disease. By year's end, as the outbreak was at its worst, Moderna delivered one of the world's first Covid-19 vaccines, with a stunningly high rate of protection. The achievement not only offered the world a way out of a crippling pandemic but also validated Moderna's gene-based technology, transforming the company into a global industry power, swelling its market value on its prospects for new drugs and vaccines for years to come. Biotech, and the venture capital community that fuels it, will never be the same.
Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Loftus, part of a Pulitzer Prize-finalist reporting team and twenty-five-year veteran reporter in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, brings the inside story of how Moderna went all in on a single revolutionary idea; of quiet research with unknown consequence; of the evolution of a cutting-edge American innovation, industry, and economy—decades in the making—that led to one of the great gambles in business history.
At the start of 2020, Moderna was a waning biotech unicorn, still years away from delivering its first product despite a decade of development of a potentially breakthrough innovation: using RNA to combat disease. Investors were getting antsy or, worse, skeptical.
Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and Moderna became a central player in a global drama—a David to pharma's Goliaths—turning its technology toward breaking the global grip of the terrible disease. By year's end, as the outbreak was at its worst, Moderna delivered one of the world's first Covid-19 vaccines, with a stunningly high rate of protection. The achievement not only offered the world a way out of a crippling pandemic but also validated Moderna's gene-based technology, transforming the company into a global industry power, swelling its market value on its prospects for new drugs and vaccines for years to come. Biotech, and the venture capital community that fuels it, will never be the same.
Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Loftus, part of a Pulitzer Prize-finalist reporting team and twenty-five-year veteran reporter in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, brings the inside story of how Moderna went all in on a single revolutionary idea; of quiet research with unknown consequence; of the evolution of a cutting-edge American innovation, industry, and economy—decades in the making—that led to one of the great gambles in business history.
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About the author
Peter Loftus writes about the pharmaceutical industry and health care for the Wall Street Journal from Philadelphia. His coverage areas include large drugmakers such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Eli Lilly and the latest developments in drug research.
Mike Lenz has been an audiobook narrator and voice actor for more than fourteen years. Having narrated titles in genres ranging from fiction, entertainment, science, and children's literature to Christian, business, self-help, and history, Mike loves bringing nonfiction and fiction stories to life.
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