The biotechnology startup founded by Noubar Afeyan that developed a COVID-19 vaccine was Moderna.
Noubar Afeyan co-founded Moderna in 2009 through his venture firm, Flagship Pioneering. The company was originally known as ModeRNA Therapeutics, a name reflecting its focus on messenger RNA, or mRNA. Rather than treating mRNA as ordinary genetic material, Moderna pursued it as a temporary biological instruction set that could prompt cells to make useful proteins.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna partnered with the U.S. National Institutes of Health on an mRNA vaccine candidate. The resulting vaccine, marketed in the United States as Spikevax, became one of the first COVID-19 vaccines authorized for widespread use. A common mix-up is to treat Moderna and Pfizer as interchangeable: both used mRNA technology, but they were separate companies and Pfizer developed its vaccine with BioNTech.