Exclusive | Moderna to open Hong Kong office, hire a dozen staff to drive its expansion in Asia
- The Hong Kong office will help deliver mRNA vaccines and therapeutics in the city and Macau, as well as with the development of new vaccines in Asia, CEO says
- An annual pan-respiratory booster targeting several diseases including Covid-19 was under development and could be approved for use as soon as 2023
Moderna, the United States pharmaceutical specialist in RNA therapeutics and mRNA vaccines, said it would open a branch in Hong Kong, adding to its commercial presence in Asia to tap the region’s health care market.
The company, based in Cambridge in the US state of Massachusetts, plans to hire about a dozen people initially in Hong Kong, using the city as the gateway to mainland China, according to its chief executive officer Stephane Bancel.
“Asia is a very important region, [and] it has the most exciting demographics and growth in the world,” Bancel said in a webcast interview with South China Morning Post. “As we look to 2022, we see Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore [as] the next natural growth factor.”
Moderna’s mRNA jab was among the earliest approved vaccines against Covid-19, along with the mRNA shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. Its expansion in Asia comes as the more infectious Omicron variant of Covid-19 sweeps the region.
