AVRO vs MRNA

AVROBIO Inc.

AVROBIO, Inc., a clinical-stage gene therapy company, develops ex vivo lentiviral-based gene therapies to treat rare diseases following a single dose worldwide. Its gene therapies employ hematopoietic stem cells that are collected from patients and modified with a lentiviral vector to insert functional copies of the gene that is defective in the target disease. The company's lead product candidate is AVR-RD-01, a gene therapy which is in ongoing company-sponsored Phase 2 clinical trial and investigator-sponsored Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of Fabry disease. It is also developing AVR-RD-02, which is in Phase 1/2 clinical trial for the treatment of type 1 Gaucher disease; AVR-RD-03, which is in preclinical development to treat Pompe disease; AVR-RD-04 that is in investigator-sponsored Phase 1/2 clinical trial to treat cystinosis; AVR-RD-05 for the treatment of Hunter syndrome; and AVR-RD-06 that is in preclinical stage to treat Gaucher disease type 3. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Moderna Inc.

Moderna, Inc., a biotechnology company, develops therapeutics and vaccines based on messenger RNA for the treatment of infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and auto-immune diseases. As of March 9, 2021, the company had 13 programs in clinical trials and a total of 24 development programs in six modalities comprising prophylactic vaccines, cancer vaccines, intratumoral immuno-oncology, localized regenerative therapeutics, systemic secreted and cell surface therapeutics, and systemic intracellular therapeutics. The company has strategic alliances with AstraZeneca PLC, Merck & Co., Inc., Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Europe) Limited, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institutes of Health, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Moderna, Inc. also has collaborations with Lonza Ltd. for the manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine; and Catalent Inc., Laboratorios Farmacéuticos Rovi, S.A., Recipharm, and Lonza Group for fill-finish manufacturing of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, as well as Aldevron, LLC for supporting COVID-19 vaccine and additional programs in company's clinical development pipeline. The company was formerly known as Moderna Therapeutics, Inc. and changed its name to Moderna, Inc. in August 2018. Moderna, Inc. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.