Armenian President, Moderna CEO Discuss Ways to Overcome Covid-19 Pandemic

YEREVAN (Armradio) — President Armen Sarkissian held a phone conversation with American-Armenian businessman and philanthropist Noubar Afeyan, whose company, Moderna, is actively working on the development of a vaccine against coronavirus.

The President wished success to Nuobar Afeyan in his endeavors, noting that the combination of experience and knowledge will lead to positive results.

President Sarkissian and Afeyan also exchanged views on the Covid-19 situation in Armenia and the opportunities and ways to overcome it. The President stressed the need to work together to overcome the situation, noting that only with joint efforts it is possible to get out of this new ordeal.

Moderna Inc’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine, the first to be tested in the United States, produced protective antibodies in a small group of healthy volunteers, according to very early data released by the biotech company on Monday.

The data comes from eight people who took part in a 45-subject safety trial that kicked off in March. The Moderna vaccine is one of more than 100 under development intended to protect against the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 4.7 million people globally and killed over 317,000.

Overall, the study showed the vaccine was safe and all study participants produced antibodies against the virus.