Moderna Therapeutics recently made headlines with its miracle coronavirus vaccine, which was 94.5% effective. Its CEO, Stéphane Bancel, has also been propelled to the forefront. A look back at the journey of this businessman at the heart of current health issues.
Who is Stéphane Bancel?
Stéphane Bancel is the man behind Moderna Therapeutics, a company that was at the heart of the news during the COVID-19 pandemic, since it quickly developed a vaccine capable of combating this disease.
To create this vaccine, Moderna used a completely new method: messenger RNA, a method that we explain to you a little below. The great success of this startup during the pandemic allowed Stéphane Bancel to accelerate on other subjects on which he is working, such as cancer treatment.
The studies and career of Stéphane Bancel
Originally from Marseille, Stéphane Bancel began his higher education studies at Ginette (Lycée Sainte-Geneviève de Versailles) in 1990. He left in 1992 and joined CentraleSupélecat the time Centrale Paris. He stayed there until 1995, but still did a year of double-degree at the University of Minnesota, specializing in chemistry. His studies at Centrale will lead him to specialize in chemical and biomolecular engineering, a field in which he will evolve throughout his career.
After starting his professional life in 1995, he returned to university in 1999. He followed an MBA at the prestigious Harvard Business School from which he graduated in 2000. He followed this training between two experiences in the world of the pharmaceutical industry.
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Stéphane Bancel’s beginnings in the pharmaceutical industry
His love affair with the sector began upon leaving CentraleSupélec in 1995. He then joined the bioMérieux Asia-Pacific division as director of the marketing and sales departments. He notably launched the sales teams in Japan, Korea, China and Australia.
He left the company in 1998 and completed his MBA at Harvard Business School before joining Eli Llily and Company in 2000. This American company, headquartered in Indianapolis (Indiana), specializes in the production of drugs against diabetes. She also initiates treatment in various medical sectors such as urology or oncology.
Stéphane Bancel will remain with Eli Lilly and Company for more than five years. He will first be manager in supply chainbefore moving up the ranks a little over a year after his arrival to become director of production strategy. It will manage 22,000 people spread across 23 sites. Just 10 months after taking this position, he became executive director of production strategy and supply chain. Finally, in 2004, he will continue his experience at Eli Lilly and Company as CEO of the company in Belgium.
The return of Stéphane Bancel to bioMérieux
Stéphane Bancel left Eli Lilly and Company in March 2006 and returned to bioMérieux in January 2007. He held the position of CEO until 2011. bioMérieux is a company specializing in in vitro diagnostics, but also other specialty areas such as agri-food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and veterinary products.
In parallel with his position at bioMérieux, Stéphane Bancel takes a position on the board of directors of Knome, Inc. This company offers software and tools which aim to enable analysis and interpretation of the human genome. He will retire from the board of this company in 2013, two years after leaving bioMérieux to found his own company.
The Moderna adventure of Stéphane Bancel
In 2011, Stéphane Bancel left his position as CEO of bioMérieux to create his own company: Moderna Therapeutics. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and today has more than 1,000 employees.
The company specializes in several medical areas: infectious diseases, immuno-oncology (a discipline in which medicine attempts to teach the body to get rid of cancer cells), rare and autoimmune diseases and diseases cardiovascular. These fields of research are quite close to those of other laboratories, which is why Moderna Therapeutics has established partnerships with several large institutions such as AstraZeneca (specialized in oncology), Merck and DARPA. The latter is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a government agency placed under the aegis of the Department of Defense whose objective is to focus on research into new technologies applied to the military field.
Moderna Therapeutics is particularly interested in work relating to mRNA or messenger RNA. mRNA is a molecule that carries the genetic code of DNA and plays an essential role in the production of proteins that allow our body to function, without damaging the original genetic code held within DNA.
Among the current research carried out by the laboratory, we find in particular an mRNA vaccine against Zika currently in phase 2. This is a disease transmitted by mosquito bites, blood transfusion or sexual relations, especially present in Latin America. Moderna is also working on an mRNA vaccine against pancreatic cancer in phase 1. Of course, Moderna’s best-known vaccine is the one against COVID-19 whose results seem promising.
Vaccine against COVID-19: The consecration of Moderna
In November 2020, Moderna Therapeutics made headlines. The reason? The announcement of an mRNA vaccine that is 94.5% effective. This is the first such effective vaccine against COVID-19. This result comes from a phase 3 test on 30,000 people. This was followed by enthusiasm from the population, but also from the States.
Moderna Therapeutics will quickly sign a deal with Switzerland which is currently studying the reliability of the study around this vaccine which was in phase 3. A contract has also been signed with the United Kingdom or even the European Union which has already pre-ordered 80 million doses for an estimated population, excluding Great Britain, of 380 million inhabitants.
Propelled to the forefront, Moderna is facing a surge in demand, but promises to manufacture nearly 500 million doses in 2021 then accelerate the pace of production to reach one billion vaccines per year, starting in 2022.
Today, Stéphane Bancel and Moderna are already working on the development of mRNA vaccines to counter the contraction of the British, Brazilian, South African and Japanese variants of the coronavirus. However, the founder of the biotech has already assured that the vaccine currently in circulation has effectiveness, albeit limited, against the British variant.
Stéphane Bancel’s ambitions for Moderna
Stéphane Bancel wants to transform Moderna into a pharmaceutical giant. He thus indicated to Figaroat the end of December 2021, that this startup will have “the scale of a Roche” within 12 to 18 months. It must be said that his company is positioning itself on many fronts today and is on the verge of making spectacular advances in the field of cancer and other subjects such as pulmonary diseases.
Currently, Moderna is working on a vaccine to counter the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Stéphane Bancel’s startup has also made great progress with regard to the creation of the PCV or Personalized Cancer Vaccinecurrently in phase 2. This product would make it possible to directly target the antigens of around twenty tumors.
Stéphane Bancel businessman and billionaire
Stéphane Bancel is not only the man at the head of Moderna. Although he owns 9% of this company that he founded, he is also invested in other companies such as QIAGEN, of which he headed the board of directors. QIAGEN a company that provides tools for laboratories during their clinical trials. The company is committed to supporting laboratories which are currently researching vaccines against COVID-19. Stéphane Bancel is also the head of the board of Syros Pharmaceuticals, a company which uses the genomic approach to treat diseases such as leukemia.
When the search for a vaccine against the coronavirus was announced, Moderna’s action took off, making Stéphane Bancel a billionaire. Its fortunes were further consolidated following announcements from the laboratory and its 94.5% effective vaccine.
The fortune of Stéphane Bancel
The health crisis has not harmed the fortunes of French billionaires. Better yet, four new people have entered the Forbes rankings. “Most of them managed to stabilize their fortune, some even saw it increase significantly”underlines Forbes magazine in its ranking.
At the head of this ranking, we find Bernard Arnault (president of the luxury leader, LVMH), Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers (L’Oréal), and François Pinault (Kering and Christie’s). Followed by brothers Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, owners of Chanel (28.8 billion each), Emmanuel Besnier, heir of Lactalis (15.9 billion), Patrick Drahi, owner via Altice of BFM, Libération and RMC (9.8 billion ), Rodolpe Saadé of the French shipowner CMA-CGM (9 billion), Xavier Niel, owner in particular of Iliad-Free and the newspaper Le Monde (7.3 billion) and Alain Mérieux of the pharmaceutical empire bioMérieux (6.8 billion).
Stéphane Bancel, the boss of the Moderna laboratory, is part of this list of French people who have seen their fortune soar thanks to the anti-Covid vaccine. He in fact owns 8% of the pharmaceutical laboratory. Thanks to this, he enters 23rd place in the Forbes ranking with a fortune estimated at 3.5 billion euros.
THE May 18, 2020Moderna’s share price had reached $80. Stéphane Bancel’s share was worth $2.5 billion. In April 2021the action reached 134 dollars and according to the new Forbes ranking, his fortune is estimated at 3.5 billion euros. The following month, his fortune rose to $4.3 billion.
On the other hand, Stéphane Bancel assures that he is not creating Moderna to enrich himself and intends to donate his fortune to philanthropy and the health sector.
Stéphane Bancel and the global economic spheres
Stéphane Bancel is very involved in global economic spheres. In 2009, he joined The Forum of Young Global Leaderscreated in 2014. Organized on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, this event brings together more than 1,400 young decision-makers from around the world working in various fields. There we find journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, artists… Young Global Leaders aims to be a place for exchanges between public and private sector actors to work towards building a better, more sustainable and inclusive world.
