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Moderna Inc. plans to start human trials for vaccines against 15 threatening viruses and other pathogens by 2025, part of a strategy to develop shots that could be made quickly in response to a future pandemic. The effort will include prototype vaccines against the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome, a cousin of Covid-19; the Ebola and Marburg viruses; a tick-borne virus that causes Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; and mosquito-borne viruses such as chikungunya and dengue fever, according to a company statement Tuesday. (Langreth, 3/8)

Moderna pledged on Monday to “never enforce” its patents for Covid-19 vaccines against manufacturers that are based in or producing in 92 low- and middle-income countries, a shift for the biotechnology firm that has come under pressure to share its mRNA technology to help address global vaccine inequity. The 92 countries are members of the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment, a mechanism aimed at securing financing for vaccines to go to those areas. (Mahr, 3/7)

Moderna signed a memorandum of understanding with Kenya’s government on Monday for the drugmaker’s first mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility in Africa, the company said. The goal is to produce up to 500 million doses of vaccines a year for the African continent, Moderna said in a statement. The focus is on drug substance manufacturing, it said, though the facility could be expanded to include fill-and-finish work. (3/7)

A new study involving millions of participants has found most side effects from mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were mild and faded substantially after one day. The findings, published Monday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, should reassure Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccine recipients that the shots, which were granted U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency authorization in late 2020, are safe, experts said. "These data are reassuring that reactions to both mRNA vaccines are generally mild and subside after one or two days – confirming reports from clinical trials and post-authorization monitoring," said the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Tom Shimabukuro, one of the authors of the large-scale study. (Thornton, 3/7)