Moderna, the pharmaceutical company that developed the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine, is now working on a new mRNA shot to treat patients who have suffered from heart failure, according to a company press release.
In an October 2022 interview with the Business Weekend podcast on Sky News, Bancel spoke about the company’s new experimental program, which involves injecting mRNA into patients’ hearts following a heart attack in order to grow new blood vessels and re-vascularize the heart.
“We are now in a super exciting program where we inject mRNA in people’s heart after a heart attack to grow back new blood vessels and re-vascularize the heart,” Bancel said. “It’s like science fiction medicine.”
Moderna’s new heart attack treatment is based on the company’s proprietary mRNA technology, which is designed to instruct the body to produce a naturally-occurring hormone called relaxin.
According to Moderna’s press release, the mRNA sequence of the new treatment, known as mRNA-0184, is engineered to have an extended half-life, with the goal of producing a sustained clinical benefit in heart failure patients.
“mRNA-0184 encodes for relaxin, a naturally occurring hormone that is known to cause hemodynamic changes that are potentially benecial for heart failure patients,” the release states. “The mRNA sequence of mRNA-0184 is engineered to instruct the body to produce relaxin with an extended half-life, with the goal of producing a sustained clinical benet in heart failure patients – this longer half-life may result in more durable eects compared to previous approaches.”
In November 2021, a Swiss study found that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, which has been widely administered worldwide, was associated with heart issues such as myocarditis and pericarditis.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its partners are also “actively monitoring reports of myocarditis and pericarditis after COVID-19 vaccination,” according to the agency, which states that heart diseases like myocarditis and pericarditis following coronavirus vaccination have been “reported.”
In response to these findings, Moderna and other vaccine manufacturers announced that they would investigate and study the long-term risks of these conditions in patients who had received the vaccine.
In recognition of this, Pfizer even partnered with a company to develop heart medication meant to treat heart conditions brought on by the mRNA shot.
Moderna’s CEO acknowledged the irony of the situation in the October interview, saying, “You’re 100% right” when the reporter pointed out that the company’s research investments were only made possible due to the massive profits it made from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
