The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in funding pledged to Moderna to help the company develop, test and license mRNA-based vaccines to combat pandemic flu viruses, including bird flu in humans.
The company said it was notified Wednesday that the agency had terminated the funding awarded by the Biden administration for the late-stage development and right to purchase prepandemic influenza vaccines.
The funds were awarded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a program that focuses on rapid development of medical treatments for public health emergencies.
Biden administration officials committed last summer to award $176 million, and then it gave an additional $590 million in January, as bird flu spread among livestock and occasional farmworkers.
The Trump administration told the company in February it was reviewing the award, part of a broader government push to examine spending on messenger RNA-based vaccines, the technology that Moderna and Pfizer used to develop their COVID-19 vaccines.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has openly criticized the vaccines and expressed deep skepticism about the safety of mRNA shots.
“After a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement.
“This is not simply about efficacy—it’s about safety, integrity, and trust. The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public.”
But with the continued use of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide, there’s a massive amount of data that shows mRNA shots are safe.
In the same announcement Wednesday, Moderna reported positive interim results from an early trial of approximately 300 healthy adults aged 18 years and older from a vaccine candidate targeting avian flu.
Without continued U.S. funding, it’s not clear what the next steps will be.
“While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis … and we will explore alternative paths forward for the program,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said. “These clinical data in pandemic influenza underscore the critical role mRNA technology has played as a countermeasure to emerging health threats.”
Avian flu has been spreading since last year among poultry and cattle herds, with more than 1,000 herds infected in 17 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Human cases have been relatively rare, with only 70 known infections, mostly among farmworkers who exhibited mild symptoms. But the virus has caused deaths in the past. The current strain has killed one person in the U.S. to date.
The patient was a Louisiana resident older than 65 years with underlying medical conditions, who contracted H5N1 after exposure to a combination of a backyard flock and wild birds.
