What mRNA is Good For, And What It Maybe Isn’t

The huge success of the mRNA vaccination platform during the pandemic has set a lot of people to thinking about what comes next. Moderna and BioNTech, of course, have been thinking this way for quite some time. But Sanofi now says that they’ll be investing large amounts into the technology, and this previously hadn’t been a big priority for them. There are others as well. So let’s step back a little and look at what mRNA can do and what it can’t.

Therapeutic mRNAs

The first distinction is between vaccines and therapeutics. It’s hard to remember now, but Moderna did not really start out as a vaccine company – they were going to make mRNA-based therapeutics, and there are some key differences. It’s an exciting idea to reach into the body and tell particular cells to start making particular proteins (of your choice) by sending mRNA messages into them. You can think of a lot of possibilities, but there are a lot of difficulties along the way to realizing that.

For one, you’re not taking advantage of the memory that...