Moderna Introduces ‘Inhaled’ mRNA Therapy and mRNA Shot for Heart Attack Patients

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel has announced the biotech company’s first “inhaled” mRNA therapy.

“If it works in this application then we can open a brand new space, a new modality in lung disease. Think about all the lung disease we could go after with inhaled mRNA. That is extremely exciting for us,” Bancel said.

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Endpoints News reported:

Vertex and Moderna’s partnership on cystic fibrosis is finally starting to bear fruit.

The two announced Monday morning that the first program from their collaboration will enter the clinic “in the coming weeks” after the FDA cleared its IND. Researchers will test the drug, known as VX-522, in adults with cystic fibrosis in a single dose escalation study. Participants must also have “a CFTR genotype not [be] responsive to CFTR modulator therapy,” Vertex added.

Moderna is also developing an mRNA shot to treat heart attack and heart failure patients.

The shot is injected directly into the hearts of patients.

“It works by instructing human heart cells to generate a hormone that is known to improve blood flow, helping restore damaged heart muscles,” Daily Mail reports.

Patients have received the injection in a phase one trial looking at dosage levels.

“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,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in an interview.

WATCH:

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel Announces New mRNA Shot to Treat Heart Failure Patients.

“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"#VaccineDeath #vaccines pic.twitter.com/aDCG7gtTrH

— The General (@GeneralMCNews) January 11, 2023

“It’s a bit like science fiction medicine but that’s what is really exciting to me,” Bancel added.

From Daily Mail:

In its latest business update, Moderna this week announced that the first patients have been given the injection, called mRNA-0184, in a phase 1B clinical trial.

The patients have stable heart failure and the trial will determine how safe the shot is and how well patients can tolerate it, as well as perfecting the dosage amount and frequency.

Heart attacks occur when there is a loss of blood supply to the heart, while heart failure is when the heart is unable to pump blood around the body efficiently.

Heart failure can develop after a heart attack if the muscle was severely damaged.

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The new shot uses messenger RNA, which carries a cell’s instructions for making proteins.

DNA, which is stored in a cell’s nucleus, encodes the genetic information for making proteins or hormones.

mRNA transfers a copy of this genetic information outside of the nucleus, to a cell’s cytoplasm, where it can be made into proteins and hormones.

The synthetic mRNA encodes for relaxin, a naturally occurring hormone that is known to cause changes to blood flow that are ‘potentially beneficial for heart failure patients’, Moderna said.

By injecting the heart with synthetic mRNA that encodes for relaxin, the mRNA shot directs human cells to generate the hormone.

Moderna said: ‘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 benefit in heart failure patients – this longer half-life may result in more durable effects compared to previous approaches.’