Across the Charles in Boston, there was one scientist who thought Big Pharma should get on boardand he had a feeling he could make it happen. Moderna already had a template to work from, having spent several years designing experimental mRNA vaccines for the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and the Zika virus. Photo of Stphane Bancel by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images. "We will be kicking off our participation at The World Vaccine Congress in Washington DC with the following sessions: - Hamilton Bennett, our Senior Director of Vaccine Access & Partnerships, will be presenting on 'The role of vaccines in preventing outbreaks, through natural" He had been through epidemics before, but he had never seen anything like this. Strengthening the Bioeconomy. In addition, what if a vaccine wasnt needed? Safe and effective vaccines are now available, including Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) that showed 94% efficacy in prevention of symptomatic COVID-19 disease in a phase 3 clinical study. Senior Director, Vaccine Access and Partnerships, CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. "The world was looking at us because we had started the first study in the U.S. We had done it faster than anyone before had ever done it. "We've come a long way in 12 months," Bennett told ABC News in an exclusive interview for "The Shot: Race for the Vaccine," a one-hour special edition of "20/20.". Ave. to take the call. Bancel fixed himself a cup of black tea and took a seat at the counter to kick off his early-morning ritual with the Wall Street Journal. When will it be done?. This isnt going to be SARS. Upstairs, her kids were still asleep when she slid into her car and drove downtown. The day after Haller was dosed, CanSinoBio in China announced it had received approval for a Phase 1 trial. All rights reserved. Are you sure?, Yeah, her colleague said. As soon as she walked into her house, though, she dropped her bag on the floor and fell into a puddle of tears. Will it be the first across the finish line? Hamilton Bennett (she/her) is the Senior Director of Vaccine Access and Partnerships at Moderna, a company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines. Up from 27 from just days before. On April 6, Inovio, the Pennsylvania company, announced it was approved to start its Phase 1 trial. Unlike more traditional vaccines, which consist of weakened or inactivated forms of a virus, thus stimulating the body's immune response to create antibodies, a vaccine using mRNA sends a set of instructions into cells to teach them to make a protein, which will trigger an immune response inside our bodies to fight off the disease. Nothing, however, produced a more acute case of agita for Bancel than the topic of how to ship the vaccine to the NIH when it was finished. Bringing you daily news at the intersection of biotechnology, politics, patients & the planet. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of a global pandemic that has led to more than 2.8 million deaths worldwide. This new type of a vaccine relied on a highly innovative and experimental technology, using messenger RNA (mRNA), described informally by Moderna as the "software of life.". Time was of the essence. Stand up for innovation. But it was his work during the 2016 Zika outbreak that rocketed him to broader fame after he produced an investigational vaccine in a then-unheard-of 180 days. Bennett received much attention for his advanced techniques, and was commissioned by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad to photograph the landscape along the company's track in Wisconsin. The plan worked. Henry Hamilton Bennett (January 15, 1843 January 1, 1908) was an American photographer famous for his pictures of the Dells of the Wisconsin River and surrounding region taken between 1865 and 1908. However, very little is known about the 35-year-old executive who has been spearheading the race to make Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine widely available. The company had also been working for years in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on bringing a new class of vaccines to market. Sure. Opportunities for women, Black and other minority populations in the growing Bio-economy. Hamilton Bennett works in the Research industry. Bennett had just entered the estimated 120-day timetable into her project-management software and advised the NIH of the schedule when manufacturing came back and said they could do it even faster. In addition, because early cameras were unable to accurately capture details of the sky or reflections in water after being adjusted for the light of a typical land photograph, Bennett wove together negatives from multiple photographs of land, sky and water before creating a final print. In his world, a global pandemic was about to descend like a biblical plague, and whatever distractions the vaccine caused internally at Moderna were irrelevant. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? The likely suspects had been ruled out. mRNA-1273 encodes for a prefusion . Bennett went back into the software and updated everyones timeline. Contact an All American Speakers Bureau booking agent. Clearly, this is coming, and it's coming to the states.'". Its going well, Andres told him. He clicked on the story and scrolled down looking for details: 59 people sick with viral pneumonia. At one point, there were more than 100 companies pursuing a vaccine, most of which will never make it into clinical trials. As people across the country saw more and more of Bennett's photographs of the Wisconsin Dells, they began to flock to Kilbourn City to see the rock formations in person. All rights reserved. And he knew just whom to call. The virus doesnt knock off at 6 p.m. for that matter, so team members agreed to organize themselves in shifts so someone would always be driving production forward, all day, every day. and spreading rapidly unbeknownst to people across the globe. Bancel had been burned by shipping before. During dinner, the dings of incoming text messages punctuated his conversation. He built himself a portable darkroom, and then towed it, his camera, and other necessary equipment with him across the local countryside taking pictures. "I'll have a moment to step back and think about what I've done and what our team has done and what our company has done.". The NIHs confidence stemmed from Modernas early-stage human trial data from 2019. Bennett, who holds graduate degrees from University of Washington in Environmental Health and Microbiology, as well a certificate in Epidemiology from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has over 10 years of research experience and had spent the last four years as a researcher and leader on the company's vaccine portfolio. The popularity of his photographs helped turn the city of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin into a tourist destination. After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Bennett joined the 12th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment and fought in the Battle of Vicksburg before being severely wounded by the accidental discharge of his own gun. Call us to speak with a booking agent to discuss your event or specific speaker request. It was too soon, they said. Hamilton maintains alliances with a broad range of domestic and overseas government and commercial collaborators, which has allowed for the pursuit of both groundbreaking science . This marked the first time the virus had spread on our home turf. Before she knew it, they had halved the time to 60 days. Chemicals sit inside a refrigerator at the Moderna Therapeutics Inc. lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nov. 14, 2017. At the time, 35-year-old Hamilton Bennett, the senior director of vaccine access and partnerships at Moderna, a small, then-relatively unknown biotech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did not anticipate that her team's years of work would soon be thrust into the global spotlight when Moderna became the first American company to jump into the race to a coronavirus vaccine. I believe in science and the possibility of great teams coming together to do things that were thought to be impossible, he says. And if we don't do it, maybe no one else will," Bennett said, while recalling her reasoning at the time. Bancel made sure the ringer on his phone was on before he left the office and made his way across the Longfellow Bridge to his home on Beacon Hill. Moderna is continuously monitoring the safety of its products. Kaiser needed to find dozens of healthy people who would volunteer as guinea pigs for Modernas Phase 1 safety trial. Soon, other decisions were made in the name of speed. At the time, 35-year-old Hamilton Bennett, the senior director of vaccine access and partnerships at Moderna, a small, then-relatively unknown biotech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did not anticipate that her team's years of work would soon be thrust into the global spotlight when Moderna became the first American company to jump "I think when every person in primarily the U.S, but also in our global space has access to a vaccine that's when I think I'm going to be able to breathe, say, 'OK, we've done it,'" she concluded. Copyright 2023 All American Speakers Bureau. Hamilton Bennett, Senior Director of Vaccine Access & Partnerships: "Your body gets sort of the software it needs to make its own protein. Although the emergence of COVID-19 was first publicly reported in late December 2019, there was still very little known about the viral outbreak. Just two months later, Moderna began its NIH-led phase 1 study. Bancel would be meeting with President Donald Trump alongside the CEOs of the worlds biggest and most powerful pharmaceutical giants, including Janssen, GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanoficompanies with dozens, in some cases hundreds, of drugs on the market and market caps north of $100 billion. He didn't have to go far to find impressive scenery, for the Wisconsin River Dells, a gorge with numerous sandstone formations, was just outside Kilbourn City. Can you make any sense of the viral outbreak going on in China? Bancel pecked out on his tablet. But when the first documented case in the United States was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 20, Bennett's team realized they needed "to move much faster. Bancel felt a 500-pound weight lift off his shoulders. The best known photograph taken by Bennett with this device was an 1886 image of his son Ashley jumping between two rock formations in the Dells. He put on the kettle and fired up his iPad. Due to the low demand for portraits in the area, Bennett set his sights on landscape photography. Moderna, Inc., will provide the data . Each day, as the coronavirus advanced around the globe, the quest for a vaccine took on an even higher level of importance and became a greater sense of pride for workers at the companyeven for some far away from the manufacturing room floor. All American Speakers Bureau is a full-service talent booking agency providing information on booking Hamilton Bennett for speaking engagements, personal appearances and corporate events. The news only strengthened Hallers resolve to participate in Modernas trials. Moderna already had a template to work from, having spent several years designing experimental mRNA vaccines for the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and the Zika virus. Although the emergence of COVID-19 was first publicly reported in late December 2019, there was still very little known about the viral outbreak. We encourage you to report any side effects directly to us at 1866MODERNA (18666633762). Early Monday morning, Modernas scientists went to work on a COVID-19 vaccine. Hamilton Bennett, the senior director of vaccine access and partnerships at Moderna, did not anticipate that her team's years of work would soon be thrust into the global spotlight when Moderna became the first American company to jump into the race to a coronavirus vaccine. People lost their jobs, diagnoses soared, and the body count rose. Can I call you right now?. What he saw sent shockwaves down to the tips of his fingers: an endless list of flights to nearly every corner of the world. As he brainstormed options with Andressomeone Bancel affectionately calls as paranoid as he istheir solutions quickly spun out of hand. Moderna's phase 1 study had been initially expected to begin in late April, but acknowledging the urgency of the situation, Bennett's team pushed the timeline forward. They agreed to convene the executive committee to discuss it straightaway. As soon as she saw the ad, it hit her: Maybe there was something she could do after all. At that point, you've got to succeed.". News of the first U.S. death and the spread of the coronavirus in Seattle were also on Bancels mind, but for slightly different reasons. On March 16, Haller woke up early, put on a tank top, threw a sweatshirt over it, and downed a scrambled egg that her husband had prepared. [2] Boston audiences of 1890 gasped when this photograph was projected as a magic lantern slide. "We realized that [SARS-CoV-2] was our prototype and that this was a live run that we were moving through." Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. They spent several hours on the phone that day, and by the time Monday rolled around they had agreed to join forces once again, capitalizing on Barouchs ability to design a vaccine and carry out preclinical work in the lab, and Janssens manufacturing capabilities and sheer muscle as a major pharma company. The biotech business is not easy. After launching successful phase 2 and 3 trials, Moderna reported an efficacy rate of 94.1%. or Sign up for the Good Day BIO Newsletter >. Bennett, who holds graduate degrees from University of Washington in Environmental Health and Microbiology, as well a certificate in Epidemiology from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has over 10 years of research experience and had spent the last four years as a researcher and leader on the company's vaccine portfolio. The clock was officially ticking. On February 7, the chief of technical operations and quality, industry veteran Juan Andres, went to the cafeteria at the Norwood plant for lunch. Brooke Bollman, 1 Naveen Nunna, 1 Kapil Bahl, 1 Chiaowen Joyce Hsiao, 1 Hamilton Bennett, 1 Scott Butler, 2 Bryant Foreman, 3 Katherine E. Burgomaster, 3 Maya Aleshnick, 3 Wing-Pui Kong, 4 Brian E. Fisher, 4 Tracy J. Ruckwardt, 4 Kaitlyn M. Morabito, 4 Barney S. Graham, 4 Kimberly A. Dowd, 3 Theodore C . Hamilton Bennett, the senior director of vaccine access and partnerships at Moderna, did not anticipate that her team's years of work would soon be thrust into the global spotlight when Moderna became the first American company to jump into the race to a coronavirus vaccine. Chinese officials had closed the airport, bus terminals, and train stations, effectively shuttering a city of 11 million. Just two months later, Moderna began its NIH-led phase 1 study. AAE is one of the premier celebrity booking agencies and top keynote speakers bureaus in the world. In late April, Moderna was still at the front of the pack, planning on Phase 2 trials this summer and then Phase 3 trials in the fall. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions. Trump looked him in the eye and asked, Can I count on you?
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