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The first U.S. clinical trial for a novel coronavirus vaccine developed by Massachusetts-based Moderna Therapeutics company began trials on March 17 at the Kaiser Permanente Institute of Health Research. Moderna Therapeutics' co-founder and director is American entrepreneur of Armenian descent Noubar Afeyan. In a phone conversation on Saturday with Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, Noubar Afeyan briefed about the vaccine for novel coronavirus and its clinical trials.

As the President’s Office reported, the interlocutors touched upon the situation in the world and in Armenia in connection with the spread of novel coronavirus as well as measures aimed at preventing and overcoming the virus, their efficiency.

Speaking of the vaccine developed by Moderna Therapeutics, Afeyan said that the biotech company was established 10 years ago, and the latest vaccine has been developed through a new technology.

“Over the past years some 2 billion USD have been invested at Moderna Therapeutics which now has 8-9 hundred employees most of them are scientists. The company has developed more than 20 medications for hearth diseases, cancer,” Afeyan said, briefing on the technology of their development.

Afeyan informed that Moderna Therapeutics' has worked with the National Institutes of Health for the past three years, testing an antiviral drug called including MERS, SARS. Afeyan, however, refrained from providing details about the current vaccine, citing he is not authorized.