CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and
ARMONK, N.Y., March 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Moderna
(Nasdaq: MRNA) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced their intentions
to explore technologies, including artificial intelligence,
blockchain and hybrid cloud, that could help support smarter
COVID-19 vaccine management. Central to the effort will be a pilot
of open, standardized, technology-enabled vaccine distribution
approaches aimed to improve supply chain visibility and foster near
real-time tracking of vaccine administration.
The aim is to identify ways technology can be used to help
accelerate secure, information sharing between governments,
healthcare providers, life science organizations and individuals.
In so doing, Moderna and IBM seek to improve confidence in vaccine
programs and increase rates of vaccination, thereby reducing
community spread.
Initial work is planned to focus on exploring the utility of IBM
capabilities in the U.S. including:
- Vaccine management solutions that provide end-to-end
traceability to address potential supply chain disruptions. The
solutions enable governments and healthcare providers to quickly
and securely share data regarding individual vaccine batches as
they travel through the complex COVID-19 supply chain, from
manufacturing facilities to administration sites.
- Digital Health Pass, built on blockchain technology, is a
solution designed to help individuals maintain control of their
personal health information and share it in a way that is secured,
verifiable and trusted. Organizations can use the solution to
verify health credentials for employees, customers and travelers
based on criteria specified by the organization, such as test
results, vaccination records and temperature checks.
"Moderna is committed to working with a coalition of partners to
increase education and awareness of the importance of vaccination
to help defeat COVID-19," said Michael
Mullette, VP, Managing Director North America Commercial
Operations of Moderna. "We look forward to working with IBM to
apply digital innovations to build connections between
organizations, governments, and individuals to instill confidence
in COVID-19 vaccines."
"If ever there was a time to rally around open technology and
collaboration, it's now," said Jason
Kelley, Managing Partner, Global Strategic Alliances Leader
for IBM. "As governments, pharmacy chains, healthcare providers and
life sciences companies continue to scale and connect their tools,
and as new players enter the supply chain, open technology can help
drive more transparency and bolster trust, while helping to ensure
accessibility and equity in the process."
The work with Moderna aligns with IBM's efforts to help address
the COVID-19 pandemic by providing access to its technology
portfolio. At the outset of the pandemic, IBM joined the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy and other technology
companies as part of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing
Consortium, a partnership to give supercomputing resources to
researchers to help speed the discovery and development of COVID-19
vaccines. IBM also offered its IBM Clinical
Development (ICD) solution to eligible trial sponsor
organizations as part of its medical community support efforts to
help address the pandemic. The company received interest from
numerous hospitals, sponsors, contract research organizations and
academic institutions.
About IBM
Statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are
subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals
and objectives only. For more information about IBM visit,
www.ibm.com.
About Moderna
In 10 years since its inception, Moderna has transformed from a
science research-stage company advancing programs in the
promising-but-still-unproven field of messenger RNA (mRNA), to an
enterprise with its first medicine having treated millions of
people, a diverse clinical portfolio of vaccines and therapeutics
across six modalities, a broad intellectual property portfolio in
areas including mRNA and lipid nanoparticle formulation, and an
integrated manufacturing plant that allows for both clinical and
commercial production at scale and at unprecedented speed. Moderna
maintains alliances with a broad range of domestic and overseas
government and commercial collaborators, which has allowed for the
pursuit of both groundbreaking science and rapid scaling of
manufacturing. Most recently, Moderna's capabilities have come
together to allow the authorized use of one of the earliest and
most-effective vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moderna's mRNA platform builds on continuous advances in basic
and applied mRNA science, delivery technology and manufacturing,
and has allowed the development of therapeutics and vaccines for
infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, cardiovascular
diseases and auto-immune diseases. Today, 24 development programs
are underway across these therapeutic areas, with 13 programs
having entered the clinic. Moderna has been named a top
biopharmaceutical employer by Science for the past six years. To
learn more, visit www.modernatx.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995, as amended, including statements regarding: initiatives for
IBM and Moderna to collaborate on technologies to facilitate
COVID-19 vaccine distribution and the potential for these
initiatives to increase vaccination rates and slow the spread of
COVID-19. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be
identified by terminology such as "will," "may," "should," "could,"
"expects," "intends," "plans," "aims," "anticipates," "believes,"
"estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue," or the negative
of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all
forward-looking statements contain these words. The forward-looking
statements in this press release are neither promises nor
guarantees, and you should not place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown
risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause actual
results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by
these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, and
other factors those other risks and uncertainties described under
the heading "Risk Factors" in Moderna's Annual Report on Form 10-K
for the year ended December 31, 2020,
filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and in
subsequent filings made by Moderna with the SEC, which are
available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Except as
required by law, Moderna disclaims any intention or responsibility
for updating or revising any forward-looking statements contained
in this annual report in the event of new information, future
developments or otherwise. These forward-looking statements are
based on Moderna's current expectations and speak only as of the
date hereof.
Moderna media contact
Colleen
Hussey
203-470-5620
colleen.hussey@modernatx.com
IBM media contact
Banks Willis
202-577-5847
banks.willis@ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM