Switzerland nears deal to get Moderna COVID-19 vaccine

ZURICH: Switzerland is close to signing a deal to secure access for a COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Moderna of the U.S., a government official has said.

Switzerland will soon sign a reservation and supply deal, Pascal Strupler, the director of the Federal Office of Public Health, told the Swiss TV programme Club late on Tuesday.

“We are only a few hours away from completing a purchase contract. With this contract we will get it very quickly,” Strupler said.

He declined to give financial details of any deal.

If the vaccine passes trials and is authorised for use, it could be produced in Switzerland under a deal between drugmaker Lonza and Moderna.

About mRNA-1273, Moderna’s Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19

mRNA-1273 is an mRNA vaccine candidate against COVID-19 encoding for a prefusion stabilized form of the Spike (S) protein, which was selected by Moderna in collaboration with investigators from Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

mRNA medicines are designed to direct the body’s cells to produce intracellular, membrane or secreted proteins that can have a therapeutic or preventive benefit and have the potential to address a broad spectrum of diseases.