BioNTech’s Deal with Matinas Could Put Moderna Out of Business

On Monday April 11th, BioNTech and Matinas BioPharma issued a joint press release. They announced a collaboration to “evaluate novel delivery technology for mRNA-based vaccines.”

What this means is BioNTech might be about to wipe Moderna, and other vaccine makers, off the face of the map.

Here’s how.

If you received a Covid-19 vaccine, it was injected into your arm by a medical practitioner. The vaccine was in a syringe. Before you arrived, the nurse used the syringe to pull the vaccine from a tiny bottle. This tiny bottle was stored in a special freezer. Current mRNA vaccines cannot be left on a shelf. They must be stored in extreme cold, or they go bad. If the vaccine goes bad, you won’t know it until you get sick. This is a major problem, especially for countries with crumbling infrastructure.

Let’s compare some frozen steaks you order online with our current vaccine technology.

Say you ordered the steaks from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart in this case, is your government. The steaks (the vaccine) were manufactured by Super Meat Company (Pfizer/Moderna). They arrive at your house in a special cardboard box (this is LNP technology and we’ll get to this later). These boxes are filled with icepacks (the tiny bottle/syringe) and are handed to you by a delivery person (the nurse.)

This is not a great system. Many things can go wrong. First, red meat has its issues. It can raise the risk of heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. There can be some mild side effects. Some people don’t want to eat it for moral reasons. The cardboard box is another issue. It could fall apart. The icepacks could thaw before the steaks arrive.. Even the driver is an issue. They might lose your box in the back of the truck for a few days. When it finally arrives, your steaks could be spoiled. And if you speak with the driver, they might end up giving you bad cooking instructions and you could ruin your steaks.

Your goal was to enjoy a nice piece of protein without it clogging your heart with fat. Instead, you got a burned hamburger that spiked your resting heart rate by six beats. Yes, it does the job of filling your stomach, but wouldn’t it be great if we could do better?

The CEO of BioNTech recognized this and that’s why they cut a deal with Matinas BioPharma. From the press release:

“We pioneered the treatment of the first patient in history with nano-sized lipid-encapsulated mRNA back in 2015, after years of extensive research. Accomplishing strong immune responses with low doses are crucial in the development of well-tolerated and highly effective vaccines. This can be achieved with the right technology that enables targeted vaccine delivery,” said Ugur Sahin, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of BioNTech. “Matinas’ LNC platform demonstrates encouraging capabilities for intracellular delivery, including the opportunity for oral delivery. We are excited to collaborate with this extraordinary team of experts.”

Remember when I said the cardboard box was LNP technology? LNP stands for lipid nanoparticles. It’s what your vaccine is packaged in. You can’t inject raw mRNA into someone’s arm, just like you can’t throw a frozen steak into the back of a delivery truck and pray it arrives at its destination without spoiling.

Matinas BioPharma has developed a new type of cardboard box. They’re called lipid nano-crystals, or LNC. LNCs are designed to be superior to LNPs in every way.

LNCs can be stored at room temperatures.

LNCs can be administered orally.

LNCs can accommodate more complicated and larger molecules.

LNCs don’t destroy the cell membrane when delivering a drug. This means you get dramatically less, or maybe even zero side effects. Since you get less or zero side effects, you can give someone more doses of a highly toxic drug. (While this doesn’t really apply to Covid-19 vaccines, it’s great for other drugs like amphotericin B.)

Imagine how great it would be if we developed a new type of chemotherapy that didn’t cause any harm to the human body. That’s what LNCs aim to do for toxic and injectable drugs.

BioNTech and Matinas have already started work to see if LNC technology can be used to improve BioNTech’s pipeline of vaccines. If LNC works (which it almost certainly does, given the stunning results in the oral amphotericin B trials) then companies like Moderna are in deep trouble.

Matinas owns the patents to LNC. They are the only ones working on this. They have patent protections that go past 2030 with the possibility of extensions.

After signing the deal with Matinas, BioNTech is the only company that can package their mRNA vaccines with LNC.

While the first Covid-19 vaccines were similar in all aspects, the second generation might not. Moderna vaccines might be joke compared to BioNTech’s.

Theoretically, an LNC vaccine could come in pill format. We could ship it to your house. It doesn’t need an appointment or a nurse to administer it. It would have less or zero side effects. It could come in a higher dose which could mean more protection.

This would be like receiving plant-based wagyu ribeye in an envelope. You’d run it under some water and watch it grow into the juiciest and healthiest steak you’ve ever eaten. It wouldn’t affect your heart or clog your arteries.

Companies like Moderna cannot compete with this. LNC technology has been in development for more than a decade. Modera would need to totally reinvent itself.

Without LNCs, anything Modera does with mRNA BioNTech can do better.

So where are we now?

Research on LNC mRNA vaccines has already begun. Employees from both companies, Matinas and BioNTech, have been sent to each other’s headquarters. This is an arms race. It will be fast. To protect against future Covid-19 variants, we need better vaccines.

Negotiations for a licensing agreement are underway. The CEO of Matinas said on April 13th that he expects an agreement to be signed within 90-120 days. This lands somewhere between July 12th and August 11th, 2022.

A licensing agreement between BioNTech and Matinas might look something like this: A flat upfront payment and/or equity investment, plus with milestone payments, along with royalty payments for sales.

This will be huge for both companies. BioNTech gets to corner the market in Covid-19 vaccine sales, and Matinas gets a ton of cash they can use to invest in more LNC treatments. There are a lot of drugs out there, and a ton of them could theoretically improved with LNC.

Matinas wants to improve everything from antivirals to cancer drugs. And when you’re looking for companies to invest in that’s what you want to hear. Monster growth plans, a disruptive product, and legal protection from competition for more than a decade. With a market cap of only 191 million, Matinas represents a significant investment opportunity.

If I was a Moderna shareholder, I would be sweating.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.