Jan 22 (Reuters) – Moderna does not plan to invest in new late-stage vaccine trials because of growing opposition to immunizations from U.S. officials, CEO Stephane Bancel said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday.
Shares of the vaccine maker jumped 10.16% in morning trading.
“You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market,” Bancel told Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Bancel said regulatory delays and little support from the authorities make the market size “much smaller.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic, has moved rapidly to rewrite U.S. vaccination policy, including dropping recommendations for COVID-19 shots for pregnant women and children, directing states to limits their vaccine mandates and cutting funding for mRNA-based vaccine research.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Shilpi Majumdar)
