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> But the margin doesn't account for the 10+ years of R&D spend that put Moderna into the position it is in today.

This and the associated economics seem like the central problem with biotechnology funding.

The timescales and likelihood of success preclude anything under the size of government investment. Even Gates can only nibble around the edges.

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Private investment in biotech dwarfs what the US puts in right now.

US gov't (NIH) = $41.6B (not all is for biotech) Biggest pharma (PhRMA members) R&D = $83B VC biotech funding + follow-on rounds = $62B

So private funding is ~3.5x what the gov't spends today.

The Gov't is often the earliest and most risk tolerant investor. I'm mainly thinking of DARPA (who funded Moderna to the tune of $25M if my memory serves) here, I have much less knowledge of how risk tolerant NIH is.

As the article points out, Modern was spending 500M a year on research before becoming profitable. Do you think a one time payment of 25M from DARPA was in any way relevant to their success?

If it happened at the very beginning when they had exactly $0 then yes it would be highly relevant. (I am not at all familiar with how Moderna got started)

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