Shares of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) surged in early trading Thursday after it announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared its coronavirus vaccine for phase 2 trial, what the company called a "crucial step."
Moderna said it will begin phase 2 trials with 600 participants shortly and is finalizing plans for a phase 3 trial as early as this summer.
According to CEO Stephane Bancel, "We are accelerating manufacturing scale-up and our partnership with Lonza puts us in a position to make and distribute as many vaccine doses of mRNA-1273 as possible, should it prove to be safe and effective."
Bancel added the company hopes to start a phase 3 trial early this summer here, which would potentially approve the first batch as soon as 2021.
Last week, Moderna announced a 10-year partnership with Swiss drugmaker Lonza to accelerate production of the experimental vaccine.
Bancel told media outlets at the time that the company hopes to begin manufacturing its potential vaccine "as early as July."
The potential vaccine, which was developed by researchers at Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, became the first candidate to enter a phase 1 human trial in March.
The vaccine candidate uses synthetic messenger RNA to inoculate against the virus. Such treatments help the body immunize against a virus and can potentially be developed and manufactured more quickly than traditional vaccines.
Shares raced higher $5.19, or 10.6%, to $54.14
