Fortune Staff

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

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Moderna Company Profile, News, Rankings

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Moderna

moderna

Moderna Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

Lyubov Pronina

Bloomberg

Europe’s drug regulator set to approve Moderna and Pfizer Omicron boosters this week

/2022/08/31/europe-pfizer-biontech-moderna-omicron-boosters-approval/

Chloe Taylor

Pfizer-BioNTech ‘surprised’ by Moderna lawsuit alleging they copied COVID-19 vaccine technology

/2022/08/26/pfizer-biontech-surprised-by-moderna-lawsuit-alleging-they-copied-their-covid-19-vaccine-technology/

Nicholas Gordon

An FDA change to vaccine authorization allowed Pfizer and Moderna to apply for BA.5 booster approval without key data

/2022/08/24/pfizer-moderna-fda-covid-vaccine-authorization-omicron-booster-ba5-clinical-trial-data/

Chris Morris

Moderna’s ‘next generation’ COVID booster approved for use in U.K.

/2022/08/15/moderna-next-generation-covid-booster-approved/

Stan Erck's goal is for people to say about Novavax "they’re the best vaccine company".

Novavax CEO on why his Covid vaccine is "demonstrably better" than Pfizer and Moderna

Leadership

Novavax CEO on why his Covid vaccine is better than others

Stan Erck's goal is for people to say about Novavax "they’re the best vaccine company"

stan thank you so much for joining us to talk about your company Novavax and your new covid vaccine. It was only a few months ago that you came out with the fourth vaccine in the U. S. So now you're competing against the fighter vaccine Moderna and johnson and Johnson tell us why would someone turn to the new Novavax vaccine compared to the established ones that have already been on the market for some time. We have some characteristics of our vaccine that make it more attractive. It's it's a very stable vaccine. It's it's it can be used at refrigerated temperatures. You don't have to go through the minus 20 or minus 70 degrees freezing. That makes it easier to use. I think that people recognize that this is a vaccine, a type of vaccine using a protein injected into the arm that that they've gotten all their lives with different vaccines, childhood vaccines and hepatitis vaccines. So so uh it's there's a comfort level and then there's data that suggests that our vaccine may last longer have have greater durability and and give you a breadth of protection as the virus changes over time and you get oh macron be a five and you get the next generation of of virus. It's hopeful that our vaccine is broad enough to protect against all of those. So how would you describe demand for the nova vax vaccine when you launched it a couple of months ago. Orders were weak. And your stock tumbles. What about now? Well you're talking about us. We've we've been in the global market for some time for instance in Korea and Japan were getting in Australia. We're getting a lot of acceptance of the vaccine has been available for a lot longer in the U. S. It's taken longer to get approvals. And so we're just only recently in the market. And so our expectation is that with data that we will be able to increase demand increased market share over the coming not only coming year but years with our vaccine. Well what's your strategy to compete with fighter and more derna? They've been selling millions of vaccines and boosters. And even now for kids, how do you compete with that? Every week? We get new sets of data that shows that that I I think allows me to predict that that our vaccine will be demonstrably better, more differentiated than the current vaccines. You know, it's taking you a little longer to get your vaccine out compared to Pfizer and Moderna. Do you think that even though Novavax has a good product, it's just too late. No, it's not too late. We're unfortunately we're stuck with Covid for a long time. And like flu, Covid is going to be bringing up new surprises to us from year to year. And I think that the vaccine that shows its most effective against these new variants is the one that ultimately will win. And I think that's our vaccine. Well, you mentioned a moment ago that your vaccine is protein based and it's what most people are used to receiving when they get vaccines. Has this made a difference in getting people who have been hesitant to get vaccinated to feel more comfortable using nova vax. Yeah. I think our vaccine would appeal to people who are vaccine hesitant because they don't understand vaccines very well. People were hesitant for because they don't understand the newest technology might just say good. I've been waiting for this and I'll use it. Well, have you gotten any feedback that your vaccine is getting to people who have been holding off from getting vaccinated by your competitors? Yes. We get a lot of feedback if you look at my if you look at my end basket in boxing my computer every day. I get lots of feedback from people who have said explained why they haven't gotten vaccinated for the past year or two. And now they're anxiously going to the pharmacy to get ours. And most people did don't know much about Novavax until Covid. It was a small struggling biotech company. But once the U. S. Government awarded your company more than $1.5 billion to develop a Covid vaccine, you were in the spotlight. You had already been Ceo for 10 years of the company but now suddenly the world was watching you, What was that like for you? We were actually too busy to pay much attention to that. Truthfully. And we went from I think it was january 12th when the gene sequence of covid became known. And we put all of our efforts? We took them off flu and put them on Covid. And truly, the team has been working seven days a week for the last 2.5 years. And there isn't a day that we don't have some meeting including Sundays and we started to face a phase three trial in the US on christmas day, Year before last. And so it's part of our life right now and will be for some time. Well when you started working a serious way on the COVID vaccine, the company had only 150 people. It didn't even have manufacturing capacity but still you were able to transform it into a global vaccine developer. What did it take for you to ramp up operations? A lot of energy. A lot of perseverance. We had early on some data in non human primates that showed that our vaccine worked really, really well and that those data usually translate well into humans and everybody in the scientific community recognize that. So we had lots of people who we had gained credibility and we were able to convince people to open up manufacturing capacity. Unfortunately that takes time. I mean usually it takes many years. We did it in many months. But but nevertheless it still takes time and we've gone from, as you say around 150 people in the U. S. And europe 2.5 years ago. And now we have over 2000 people and several manufacturing sites. How would you describe what you did as ceo to lead the project and to lead the team? I don't think there's anything magical. I think it's it's it's it's relatively easy when you've got, when you've been able to hire a good group of people and your mission is so so clear and and your technology and the tools you have are so unique. The people in the company that have joined the company in the past three years and have been working with it are all equally motivated because as I say, the mission is not just Covid, it's also Covid and flu and other vaccines. I don't have to do anything special to to motivate these people. They're self motivated. So what's next for Novavax? How do you want people describing the company 345 years from now? Nobody's ever built an independent vaccine company in the last 50 years or more. And I think that's exactly what Novavax is headed toward. Um and in five or 10 years I think I think everybody's going to know when they think vaccines they're going to think about Novavax because they're the best vaccine company

Walmart takes the number one spot for the tenth straight year.

Introducing the 2022 Fortune 500 list

Franchise_Lists

Amazon has taken the number two spot behind Walmart.

Watch: Introducing the 2022 Fortune 500 list

The Fortune 500 is America's largest company that's measured by revenue. This is the 68th edition of the Fortune 500. And really the list is synonymous with big business success. The companies in the Fortune 500 this year produced a total of $16.1 trillion $1.8 trillion dollars in profit. That's $16.1 trillion dollars in revenue is equal to two thirds of the GDP of the United States This year. To crack the 500, companies had to have at least $6.4 billion 19% from the year before. And that really shows the strong year that American business had the order of the companies at the top of the Fortune 500 this year stayed the same as last year, walmart was number one amazon number two. Apple, number three Cbs Health, number four and UnitedHealth group number five walmart, the giant retailer based in Bentonville, Arkansas is number one on the Fortune 500 this year. For the 10th consecutive year, Walmart earned $13.7 billion 27th among the entire 500. And it shows that in that retail business, the margins are not nearly as high as for some of these big tech, Apple came in number three on our list, but it is the number one in terms of profit generating companies in America, it's generated $95 billion dollars in profits. So number four, we have CVS Health. It's run by Karen Lynch, she is one of 44 women C. E. O. S in the Fortune 500. She's one of the most powerful women in the world and she's helping one of the most powerful companies in the world. Amazon made another huge leap towards catching up with walmart. It grew its revenues 21% of $470 billion. Amazon's profits also jumped up by more than 50% to $33 billion, nearly three times the profitability of Wal Mart. Amazon of course is one of the companies that really got a big boost over the past year from the pandemic as people turn to online shopping and also from the streaming world from amazon prime to others that use amazon's cloud services. There wasn't much change in the makeup of the top 10 in the Fortune 500 this year, but one notable development was that Exxon mobil jumped from number 10 back up to number six and that was boosted by higher oil prices. Exxon's revenues shot up 57% to around $285 billion last year. The biggest mover in the Fortune 500 this year was Blackstone. The new york based investment house which jumped 295 spots to number 1, 59 in the rankings as its investment portfolios had huge returns in 2021. Another company that made a really big jump in the rankings this year was Carve Ana, Which moved up 193 spots to # 290. Carbonneau is another one of those companies that really benefited during the pandemic. Some other notable trends from the Fortune 500 this year, where we had our first crypto company, you'll notice coin bases on the list for the very first time. Coin base is a big benefactor of the crypto craze were recently, of course, crypto prices have started to sell off and we're not sure if coin base is going to be around on the 500 next year. Moderna jumps onto the list this year and number 1 95 with $18 billion in sales. And Moderna of course, is one of the companies that brought us the M RNA vaccines and it's really brought that company from being a startup with potential to being a Fortune 500 company almost overnight, More than half of the sectors in the Fortune 500 recorded record profits last year, including financials, retail and big tech. In fact, it was an incredibly strong year for the Fortune 500 across the board. Total sales and total profits hit record levels this year, even adjusted for inflation And revenues grew the most since 1975. While profits jumped the most since 2010. One of the things I found most interesting about the list was actually the people on it. They remained relatively unchanged. We saw there were 44 women ceo, this time that's the highest number of women that have ever been on the Fortune 500 list. But it's only three more than last year. We're gonna expect a lot of movement amongst c. E. O. S. In the next year. So I suspect that leadership of the Fortune 500 will be pretty drastically different next year this time around.

Only the Pfizer and Moderna booster shots have been approved.

FDA recommends second booster for ages 50 and older

Health

People 50 and older can get a second Booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. This also means that people who have immuno compromised conditions can get 1/5 dose following the three dose primary vaccination series with Pfizer or Moderna and initial booster that was previously authorized for this population. This is we have plenty of supply to ensure that those populations can receive these shots. Um, but what I would say is that if it at some point it becomes recommended that the full the full population. Yes, it requires 1/4 shot. We're going to need additional funding. We're going to need the additional funding we've requested of Congress to be able to provide uh, to provide those shots for the, for the broader population. But we do have the supply uh, and people will be able to go. People in those populations over 50 and up. We'll be able to go and and get those shots. It's possible that people will need to get another vaccine there and getting this booster will not preclude people from getting that booster necessarily If there's evidence that another booster could be of benefit for most people who have been vaccinated and had one booster, your original booster shot is continuing to bribe you with good protection from being hospitalized or dying. If you haven't had a first booster yet. Now's a good time to get one

Afeyan walks us through the development of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine from inception to distribution.

Catching Up with Moderna chairman Noubar Afeyan

Noubar Afeyan is also CEO of Flagship Pioneering, Moderna's founding company.

Moderna chairman discusses COVID-19 vaccine development

Watch: Catching Up with Moderna chairman Noubar Afeyan

mm mhm mhm. Moderna has been an unusual company in the biotech sense of things because most biotech companies focus on individual drug assets and Moderna actually focused on platform, the common set of technologies or biological breakthroughs that can allow many, many products to be generated. And so in this case the one platform that we built was a platform based on Messenger RNA. The technology to design, make analyzed scale and marry none of that was existent at all, either in academia or in industry and so we had to build it from scratch. We knew that out of that platform would come many many drugs and in fact by 2015 we started testing our first vaccine which was a flu vaccine actually. And from there we expanded that such that by the time COVID-19 arrived we already had almost 20 different programs That we were developing internally for human therapeutics and vaccines. So we went from an idea to a platform to a robust pipeline of products plus the platform which itself was growing in its uh scale and that has been kind of a ten-year journey that Madonna took to get to the point in 2020 when we started applying it to yet another vaccine. But in this case it became a pandemic mhm. Early in january we began to read about a mysterious disease in china which is always of interest to us because we do vaccines and so we always want to keep an eye on this. But by no means that we realized it was going to be a serious threat. And so kind of a couple of weeks into january, the sequence started appearing of what this virus might be. Once we knew it was a corona virus, we had a program in the murders, the Middle Eastern variant of this coronavirus. So we knew that there was a basis to think that we could do a vaccine because we've already been working on that january 21st was the date that that really was significant in that. That's the date when Stefan and I had a discussion where he had been exposed to a lot of public health officials who are concerned about this. Beginning more serious and we have to make a decision do we want to add yet another program to our pipeline overnight to begin to make the drug for testing or the vaccine for tests? We decided to do that. It was not called the pandemic. There hadn't been many deaths at the time. We decided to do that partly because we could meaning our platform lends itself to it and partly because we thought it would be a great way to test how quickly our platform could respond. The job went not from, look how fast we can go to look how far we can scale and how well we can execute getting something all the way to clinical approval. And that was a totally different decision, which we were almost forced to make at the time. By the time this became a pandemic, there was no return. But interestingly in the beginning we would have done this even if it didn't become a pandemic because there's a great Scientific medical unmet need that featured our platform. We've spent 10 years and over $2 billion dollars developing up until that point, We got the first information that it was efficacious back in May of 2020 in our phase one trials in humans. There was no question we were generating a huge amount of anybody's more than sufficient for any other coronavirus and we were sure that this was going to be implications. But that wasn't a very small number of people, hundreds of people. Whereas now we needed to do it in tens of thousands of people. The data for that came about in November of 2020. Not only did we know that it was going to be efficacious and how efficacious it was at the 94-plus% level, but also that it was safe and we were very gratified because that's singularly the risk. Almost all of our other vaccine programs at such a large scale because our products, unlike normal vaccines is exactly the same product, no matter what we're going after with the exception that the sequence of RNA is slightly different. So the molecule that we put in the LMP the particles, the RNA, they're all basically the same constituents in a slightly different order making a different protein. The safety concerns come from the LMP come from putting em on a and now suddenly we had massive amount of data. We were very happy about that. Of course. Since then we've now given this to hundreds of millions of people and the safety profile has stretched over that. We have 20 programs before COVID came and we have 34 programs now. Um we have added some programs. We think that the vaccine, the risking certainly makes it necessary for us to work on seasonal flu RSV is another vaccine program which we have accelerated as a result, it's another respiratory serious viral infection. We are working on combinations of M RNA vaccine. Something else that's quite unusual to think about right now. We take one shot for flu, take a booster shot for covid. Well what about if you can put all these into a single shot while our technology allows you to do that because it's a set of molecules and the same carrier can be used with a single shot, which is much more compliant. HIV is another program. We've accelerated as a result of this because now that we know we could make a multi auntie Gin kind of vaccine uh which means many different things inside of our vaccine. HIV needs many many animals. It's not a single protein you're going to make, we have cancer programs. We have cardiovascular programs. We have rare disease programs and how we decide among those is a portfolio analysis of the kind of risks inherent in each. How quickly we can make progress to take some of these into late stage clinical trials, maybe even the market. So we want to have some late stage programs, some early programs, pretty kind of typical of the way one thinks about a big portfolio for pharmaceutical company. The only difference is all of this derives from our platform. So there's a commonality and there's an intrinsic shared risk that we're leveraging in every decision we make.