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Distinguished Speaker Seminar with Stéphane Bancel, CEO, Moderna

Every day matters in shaping the future of healthcare.

A few months ago, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel was visiting a vaccine manufacturing plant when someone asked him how she could best keep focused and not make mistakes. He advised her: ‘every time you make a batch, think about a different person you love. That batch you're making today may be used for somebody you were in in school with, and the batch next week might be for your brother, and the week after it might be somebody else, and if you care deeply because you think about somebody you love, then by extension you care for the rest of the planet.’

Everyone has been, or will be, touched by serious illness in some way, says Bancel. His compassionate and authentic approach to healthcare leadership is evident throughout this Distinguished Speaker Seminar, hosted by Giles Davies, Founder and Director, The Breast Clinic Ltd, and a current student of the Masters in Global Healthcare Leadership, Soumitra Dutta, Peter Moores Dean and Professor of Management, Saïd Business School, and Agni Orfanoudaki, Associate Professor of Operations Management, Saïd Business School.

Topics covered include:

How AI and the mRNA platform can help speed up drug development

Historically, drug discovery and development have been notoriously sluggish. But thanks to mRNA technology and artificial intelligence (AI), these processes can be accelerated and medicines made increasingly accessible, especially to poorer parts of the world.

Moderna’s mRNA platform allows multiple medicines to be designed and hypotheses to be tested in parallel, speeding up the journey from idea to potential product. Meanwhile, researchers are using AI and predictive technology to improve clinical trials. As Bancel says, ‘Drug development is only about data’, with clinical trials aimed at collecting data from which decisions about efficacy, dosage and safety can be made. AI is not removing the human element, but is simply ‘a system helping me understand a mass of data in a way that my brain can understand’.

Adopting the mindset that ‘every day matters’

In developing and distributing the COVID vaccine, ‘What happened from the clinical standpoint was amazing,’ he says, ‘but what happened in manufacturing was even more amazing.’ Bancel describes calling round CEOs personally to ask if they had spare capacity that would allow Moderna to make the vaccine in the large amounts required – and everyone falling over themselves trying to make this possible. Regulators were unusually available, able to join meetings whenever they were asked, rather than demanding the several months’ notice that they would expect ‘in normal times’.

Collaboration was key, and everyone pulled together to ‘defeat’ the virus. But what happens when the crisis is over? Is it hard to keep up the same momentum? Bancel says ‘You need to keep the mindset that every day matters’, urging leaders to be relentless in focusing on solving problems.

Focus on work/life harmony

Asked how he as a CEO manages to achieve a suitable work/life balance, he says that ‘balance’ does not exist. Instead, he aims to achieve work/life harmony by carving out time for exercise and to think – and by deleting his email app when on holiday. It’s about ‘setting up a life that works for you,’ he concludes. 

Watch a recording of the full event.