Talk:Moderna

What are "traditional high-margin chronic therapeutic areas"?

I (a layperson) have no idea what these are, but the lede seems pretty confident in using that phrase. Could someone clarify? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 06:10, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

high-margin = more profitable (per source). vaccines are a low-margin business, hence why so few pharmaceuticals focus on them. 109.255.90.188 (talk) 11:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

for example, there are several COVID-19 vaccines being developed where they plan to sell at cost (i.e. Oxford/AZ vaccine). 109.255.90.188 (talk) 11:55, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Move section on Covid-19 vaccine to its own article

Other major Covid-19 vaccines have their own articles, and the article about the organization backing them kept separate. I think it would make sense to follow the same pattern for mRNA-1273 and Moderna. --Fernando Trebien (talk) 16:31, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree. ~ Bert Macklin (talk) 01:23, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Roche and Moderna

In my view, [1] is substantially the same as [2], a press release from Roche Diagnostics. Therefore, per WP:NEWSORG ([p]ress releases … are often used by newspapers with minimal change; such sources are churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release) I do not think it can be used as a source for this edit, which Osterluzei has introduced. What do others think? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 04:19, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

AleatoryPonderings, at the bottom of the rapidmicrobiology.com piece is a "source article link" to [3], which is clearly a press release. So I agree we probably don't want to use it as a source if we have something better available. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:23, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, Thanks. As far as alternatives go, there is this from Reuters, and a couple republished versions of that piece. More fundamentally, as a non-medical expert, I'm not sure how important this partnership is in the grand scheme of things. Is it worth including at all? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 22:36, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Split article to MRNA-1273

MRNA-1273 was the 2nd approval. Should i split the article already. Thank You. source 120.29.113.193 (talk) 01:16, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Submission for emergency use authorization

This submission is presented as a consequence of the proof of effectiveness. I don't think that is the logical sequence. Rbakels (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

"Cytotoxicity" of lipid nanoparticles not supported by sources

In the intro: "It is a novel technique, abandoned by other manufacturers because of the side effects of repeatedly inserting mRNA into cells by way of lipid nanoparticles, which were found by the other manufacturers to become cytotoxic."

This isn't supported by any of the three sources. The FT article doesn't mention the toxicity issue at all, and the closest we get to "cytotoxic" is from the Stat articles:

"For Moderna, that meant putting its Crigler-Najjar therapy in nanoparticles made of lipids. And for its chemists, those nanoparticles created a daunting challenge: Dose too little, and you don’t get enough enzyme to affect the disease; dose too much, and the drug is too toxic for patients."

"They work better if they’re wrapped up in a delivery mechanism, such as nanoparticles made of lipids. But those nanoparticles can lead to dangerous side effects, especially if a patient has to take repeated doses over months or years. Novartis abandoned the related realm of RNA interference over concerns about toxicity, as did Merck and Roche."

(Speaking of the FT article, the archive link doesn't get past the paywall. Are archive.is archives acceptable? One exists there.)

I'm a bit concerned that this claim could be taken as evidence that vaccines using this technology (such as Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine) are cytotoxic. Potential rewrites in the absence of appropriate sources:

"It is a novel technique, abandoned by other manufacturers because of the potential toxicity of repeatedly inserting mRNA into cells by way of lipid nanoparticles."

"Moderna's technology platform inserts synthetic nucleoside-modified mRNA (modRNA) into human cells using a coating of lipid nanoparticles. This mRNA then reprograms the cells to prompt immune responses. It is a novel technique, abandoned by other manufacturers due to concerns about the toxicity of lipid nanoparticles at high or frequent doses."

Tranquilled (talk) 06:05, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Moderna

The CEO of Moderna pronounces it like it's supposed to be pronounced in Spanish, so the pronunciation and link should be fixed. Jimhoward72 (talk) 16:00, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Criticism section

The discussion of criticisms here was trimmed because a) the work environment in 2016 is outdated, as the company has made substantial developments and gained obvious success with its mRNA vaccine implemented in 2021, whereby it is likely most employees now see and are proud of the fruits of their efforts; and b) countless US companies have offshore tax avoidance subsidiaries (considered legal and appropriate) and use Delaware for patent filing or incorporation. Neither of these points is an informative "criticism". Zefr (talk) 19:31, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure many US companies dodge taxes, but it's nonetheless considered morally wrong by most people, and by many politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. It cannot be considered "appropriate". That its workplace environment has changed is possible, though numerous red flags make me doubt that. Perhaps you would like to name some of the companies that use Delaware as a tax haven to demonstrate how common and appropriate it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Surge Of Reason (talk • contribs) 21:45, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

The talk page is not a forum for your opinions or for correcting your misunderstandings, WP:TALKNO, WP:NOTFORUM. If you have constructive content to add, provide a WP:RS source, and recommend what to change for review among editors. Zefr (talk) 16:31, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

"The talk page is not a forum for your opinions or for correcting your misunderstandings." Yes I agree, perhaps you should consider that yourself, sir. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Surge Of Reason (talk • contribs) 17:01, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I reverted Surge of Reason's addition (diff) because it was giving undue weight to the tax issue. In addition, I note that Zefr noted that they had objections to this being included in the article above; it's improper to edit war these changes back in without first gaining consensus. Aoi (青い) (talk) 09:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

(Came here from the Teahouse) I would think the tax thing is due weight to mention, and that Aoi’s full revert is heavy-handed. Yes, many companies use tax avoidance schemes, but few of them attract full-length pieces in Politico for that. Two large paragraphs might be too much, but IMO nothing at all is too little. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 13:43, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

@Tigraan: That's fair. To be clear, I'm not opposed to mentioning the tax issue in the article at all, but the version in the article was too much. Aoi (青い) (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to try and resolve this. Here is my outline:

1: An investigation by reputable source is not a minority opinion, unless there is factual research that reached opposing conclusions.

2: I took this from the Tax Avoidance page: "Forms of tax avoidance that use tax laws in ways not intended by governments may be considered legal but are almost never considered moral in the court of public opinion and rarely are in journalism. Many corporations and businesses that take part in the practice experience a backlash from their active customers or online."

Based on this a majority of people consider tax avoidance to be immoral.

3: I took this from the Tax Avoidance page:

text collapsed by TigraanClick here for my talk page ("private" contact) 14:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

"Large companies accused of tax avoidance In 2008 it was reported by Private Eye that Tesco utilized offshore holding companies in Luxembourg and partnership agreements to reduce corporation tax liability by up to £50 million a year.[33] Another scheme previously identified by Private Eye involved depositing £1 billion in a Swiss partnership, and then loaning out that money to overseas Tesco stores, so that profit can be transferred indirectly through interest payments. This scheme is reported to remain in operation and is estimated to be costing the UK exchequer up to £20 million a year in corporation tax.[33][34] In 2011, ActionAid reported that 25% of the FTSE 100 companies avoided taxation by locating their subsidiaries in tax havens. This increased to 98% when using the stricter US Congress definition of tax haven and bank secrecy jurisdictions.[35] In 2016, it was reported in the Private Eye current affairs magazine that four out of the FTSE top 10 companies paid no corporation tax at all.[36] Tax avoidance by corporations came to national attention in 2012, when MPs singled out Google, Amazon.com and Starbucks for criticism.[37] Following accusations that the three companies were diverting hundreds of millions of pounds in UK profits to secretive tax havens, there was widespread outrage across the UK, followed by boycotts of products by Google, Amazon.com and Starbucks.[38][39] Following the boycotts and damage to brand image, Starbucks promised to move its tax base from the Netherlands to London and to pay HMRC £20million,[40] but executives from Amazon.com and Google defended their tax avoidance as being within the law. Google has remained the subject of criticism in the UK regarding their use of the 'Double Irish', Dutch Sandwich and Bermuda Black Hole tax avoidance schemes.[41] Similarly, Amazon remains the subject of criticism across the UK and EU for its tax avoidance. In October 2017, the EU ordered Amazon to repay €250 million in illegal state aid to Luxembourg following a 'sweetheart deal' between Luxembourg and Amazon.com enabling the American company to artificially reduce its tax bill.[42] PayPal, EBay, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook have also been found to be using the Double Irish and Dutch Sandwich schemes. Up to 1,000 individuals in the same year were also discovered to be using K2 to avoid tax.[43] Other UK active corporations mentioned in relation to tax avoidance in 2015, particularly the Double Irish, Dutch Sandwich and Bermuda Black Hole: Technology: Apple, Microsoft, PayPal, EBay, Intel, Yahoo!, Facebook, Uber, Netflix, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Twitter[44] Retail: Boots (who moved their registered office to a Swiss letterbox),[45] Kellogg's,[46] and TopShop[47] Football clubs: Manchester United, Birmingham City, Coventry City and Cheltenham Town.[48] News: Daily Mail[49] Other corporations mentioned in relation to tax avoidance in later years have been Vodafone, AstraZeneca, SABMiller, GlaxoSmithKline and British American Tobacco.[36] Tax avoidance has not always related to corporation tax. A number of companies including Tesco, Sainsbury's, WH Smith, Boots and Marks and Spencer used a scheme to avoid VAT by forcing customers paying by card to unknowingly pay a 2.5% 'card transaction fee', though the total charged to the customer remained the same. Such schemes came to light after HMRC litigated against Debenhams over the scheme during 2005.[50] Africa lost at least $50 million in taxes. This is more than the amount of foreign development aid. European companies operating in Africa aren't all that different from the actions of US companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon do not pay enough taxes because of tax avoidance.[51] According to the Independent Commission for International Corporate Tax Reform (ICRICT), the ‘GAFA’ (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) belong to the worst tax offenders worldwide. In 2018, Amazon was not charged any corporate taxes in the US for two years in a row, despite its doubling profits. Other multinationals, such as Apple for example, also exploit fiscal loopholes, diverting profits from high tax countries into others with lower corporate tax rates."

Based on this the consensus appears to be that tax avoidance information can be included on wikipedia pages.

Does Zefr disagree with any of these statements? Surge Of Reason (talk) 17:38, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree with the above opinions and soap-boxing by Surge Of Reason, a user who is ignoring WP:TALKNO and WP:NOTFORUM by continuing to misuse the talk page to air out grievances. The Politico article is a news report (July 2021) on a SOMO analysis of a leaked EC contract, making the issue more incomplete WP:RECENTISM and WP:NOTNEWS than the encyclopedic content expected. The reverted edit here was justified, as there is insufficient history to give the tax issues balance as a "criticism". A December 2021 BioSpace report shows that Covid-19 vaccine contracts and sales worldwide have numerous factors varying country-by-country, and indicate that a balanced perspective on Moderna's vaccine finances needs more time to clarify. Until then, the criticism content is too premature and one-sided to include. Zefr (talk) 18:13, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I do not see how Moderna’s country-by-country vaccine sale revenue has any relevance to the issue of tax evasion. If there are enough reliable sources to talk about tax evasion (and to justify it is due weight), but not about revenue sources, we still talk about tax evasion. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 14:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

The source doesn't talk about tax evasion, it talks about tax avoidance, which is a mundane activity that every company which has ever existed and ever will exist engages in. You yourself probably engage in tax avoidance, but I doubt you would think that that would be worthy of a mention in a hypothetical encyclopedia article about yourself. Mlb96 (talk) 21:37, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

• @Surge Of Reason: You could have linked the page tax avoidance instead of citing it in extenso (I have collapsed this to keep the talk page here somewhat readable).

Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs, so whether tax avoidance is immoral or not is irrelevant to whether we mention it, and investigating whether other editors share your beliefs is not productive. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 14:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Zefr: regarding this revert I am not sure I understand the edit summary. Do you object to the edit in full, or just to the header "tax evasion"? If the latter, I am entirely fine with replacing it with "tax avoidance". Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:27, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

First, there was no clear consensus here on the talk page to include tax avoidance as a criticism or controversy. Second, because it is a legal, normal, and expected business practice, tax avoidance is a non-issue, WP:UNDUE, and does not add prominent or unique content about Moderna. Zefr (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC: should the page mention tax avoidance allegations?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the page mention allegations that Moderna engages in tax avoidance? Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 12:45, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

As a baseline, consider this edit, with the before-edit state for "no" and the after-edit state for "yes". Pinging the people who participated in the section above: Zefr, Surge Of Reason, Aoi.

Discussion

• (RfC originator) Yes, along the lines of this edit. The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations itself is a biased source, so we need to attribute the claim; but it has been picked up in two articles from different newspapers devoted entirely to the issue - one from Politico (listed as reliable at RSP) and one from the Brussels Times (not listed at RSP, but no red flags that I can see). A single sentence is due weight in view of those sources. Whether tax avoidance is legal, normal, moral etc. is irrelevant; we follow the sources, rather than deciding ourselves what is worth mentioning. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 12:45, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• Weak YesNeutralSupport mention but Oppose subsection - My initial thought was that this might be undue, especially b/c these kinds of tax avoidance schemes are pretty common and not extraordinary. Having the section there might make it seem as though the company is mostly about tax avoidance, which probably would be a false impression. Are reconsidering though, I think having "Tax Avoidance" sections in articles covering companies is actually quite common (e.g. Google). I know this is an WP:OTHERCONTENT argument, but to a certain extent, a major part of any business is how it pays its taxes. It's probably a less exciting part, but one that is probably WP:DUE to mention if it has coverage in RS. NickCT (talk) 14:34, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
  • After reconsideration, I can only find two sources that cover the "avoidance" aspect of Moderna. There's the politico piece, then one in the Brussels Times. Definitely seems like pretty limited coverage compared to other coverage of Moderna. Moves me back to thinking that a whole section would likely be WP:UNDUE. NickCT (talk) 17:12, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I agree there is not much else than those two pieces in reliable sources, though I think it warrants at least a mention, if not a section. There is a piece in Law360 too, but it is paywalled so I cannot access it. Law360 was not discussed a lot at RSP but what little discussion there is seems rather favorable, one discussion and one side mention. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 14:04, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
      • Ok. Yeah I agree. The sourcing we have is enough for a mention. But we shouldn't have a whole section devoted to it. NickCT (talk) 17:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
• No, for the extensive reasons given above that tax avoidance is a normal business practice, does not need attention in discussing a biotech company, is not corporate tax evasion, and further, it is also not about paying zero corporate tax - Tigraan's draft statement in the article is a misunderstanding and misstatement: the issue of tax avoidance is about profits and tax on sales of the Covid vaccine, not the whole company. The Politico article specifically addresses vaccine finances, and provides no deeper insight than reporting what the biased SOMO analysis stated. Moderna became a public company in Decembeer 2018, and has had vaccine sales only in 2021-2, leading to this public 3Q21 report, showing financial results and discussion of corporate tax on p 7/11. There is no breakdown on finances about vaccine sales, profits, taxes, etc. More specific financial results will be in the form of SEC 10-k for 2021, which is not yet reported on the Moderna site. These specific financial details do not need to be in the article at this stage of a publicly-young biotech company, WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Zefr (talk) 15:42, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
  • I understand you are against any mention at all on grounds of due weight. That being said, your first objection is easily addressed by a revision to the draft edit (for instance Moderna avoids paying some corporate taxes related to vaccine sales through the use a Swiss shell company), though I would wait to see if there is consensus for inclusion before doing the wordsmithing. I already did a mistake in my first edit which included "tax evasion": I was thinking in my native language (French) where "évasion fiscale" (which would be the literal translation of tax evasion) often describes the legal thing, and the illegal thing is "fraude fiscale" (litt. tax fraud).

  I do not think the existence or publication of SEC filings and similar financial records matters here. If the current sourcing is insufficient for a mention of tax avoidance allegations, a primary source will not change that (unless it makes newspapers write more about it). I do not think we should mention the detailed financial information of any company (young or old, biotech or not), unless it attracted secondary sources discussing it (over-the-top example: Enron scandal). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 14:04, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• No, Undue to take up space in an encyclopedia article unless the story significantly develops with more coverage. Moderna has become a high profile company with a lot of global coverage. Two stories, world wide, ain't much. And to be frank, I'm not surprised this hasn't gotten more coverage. In the U.S., setting up corporations through Delaware is well known standard practice. There doesn't seem to be even any allegation of anything illegal. Alsee (talk) 00:36, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
• Maybe, but not in a "Controversies" section. Most large companies engage in tax avoidance, which is perfectly legal; this is not something unusual about Moderna. That said, it's fine for an article about a corporation to explain its corporate structure. If we want to do that, we should not frame it as "here are some controversial allegations against Moderna" but rather as a matter-of-fact "here is how Moderna's corporate structure works" (based on reliable sources, of course). —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 12:46, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
• No, tax avoidance is a normal business practices, and as Alsee notes this just does not have enough coverage to be mentioned. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:15, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
• No. Any company that doesn't practice legal "tax avoidance" should fire its CFO. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 01:20, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, sufficient coverage for a mention, although perhaps not an entire subsection. For the people arguing "it's common so we shouldn't cover it" - that's not really how we decide things; we decide based on the coverage. If it has received significant coverage, then that indicates that there is something notable about Moderna doing it (whether it's the degree or context or whether it is just not as common as your gut might be telling you.) A single sentence is therefore probably not undue. --Aquillion (talk) 07:14, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
• No, as per all the above comments at this moment. If it gets notable for some reason like a legal case or scandal then we can revisit then. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:20, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
• Not a separate subsection, and not in the controversies section as I think this is giving the issue undue weight. However, I would be fine with including a sentence on the topic under the subheading "2020–2021: COVID-19 vaccine". Aoi (青い) (talk) 19:51, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, but it doesn't have to be in a separate subsection. It's received significant coverage: that is the metric we use on Wikipedia, not whether it is legal (who here is claiming illegality?) or whether every company does it to the same extent (). We have an "Operations and finances" section with much worse-sourced information—why is that significant but this isn't? Since there seems to be little opposition to that section, it appears to me that people do not oppose coverage of "Operations and finances", but this part of their operations and finances is subject to special pleading for exclusion, possibly based on people worrying that it may reflect negatively on Moderna (which should not be a factor at all, either for or against). One editor opposing the content explains what type of financial information they want to include and why, which does address my rationale, but the others do not appear to have considered it.
  The information should not go in a "Controversies" subsection, because such sections should not exist, and the article's current one is no exception. — Bilorv (talk) 10:55, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, there is sufficient WP:RS coverage for a mention, but Not in a subsection. A brief mention is all that is really WP:DUE, I think. Fieari (talk) 05:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Leaning Yes - I see other articles cover this topic, I can't consider it a "normal business practice". As other editors say, there are sufficient WP:RS for mentioning it, but not enough for creating a separate subsection. P1221 (talk) 09:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• No not as written, as wp:unue comes into it. Slatersteven (talk) 11:55, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Closing the discussion

Tigraan opposes closing this discussion, reverting my closure with the edit summary: "don’t close a discussion you are involved in." The RfC closing guide - #5 in WP:RFCEND says: If the consensus is clear, any editor—even one involved in the discussion—may close the discussion.

I closed the discussion, providing a conclusion: There is no consensus, WP:CON, for adding to a Criticisms or Controversy section comments about tax avoidance - a normal and expected business practice for any company. Neither is there precedence among competitor biotech company articles for discussing such a topic. Further and lastly, the original criticism was in error, as the points made were about the fiscal practices for the COVID-19 vaccine which are not yet fully available for the 2021 world distribution, not the company as a whole - the topic of this article.

The sufficient consensus is No: 5; Yes: 2; Neutral: 2. As Tigraan created this RfC on an error of understanding - the two critical articles written were both about tax avoidance associated with Moderna's financing of the 2021 vaccine rollout, not the company as a whole - what is point are you intending to make now? You can review and detail your concerns from the 2021 SEC 10-k here, which is the only official information available on the matter of this RfC. I used it to summarize the article section on Operations and finances for 2021. Specific details on revenues (and taxation) for 2021 vaccine sales have not been reported, to my knowledge, and may not be made public anyway. What company reports to the SEC and its investors specific taxation on the revenues of one product? Zefr (talk) 17:06, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

• "More than 50% for one option" is well short of "clear consensus". Feel free to ask at any admin noticeboard of your choice (WT:RFC, WP:AN/WP:ANI, whatever) if you think I am wrong. (In the present case, I also believe closure against the numerical majority would be within closing discretion due to the strength of the arguments, but of course I would think that, and that’s exactly why one should not close discussion one is involved in.) Also, RfCs usually run for a month, which would takes us up to March 17th here - I will grant you that most comments pop up within the first week so it is not likely to matter, but that is one more reason not to close while involved.

I have already answered your points about substance above (I do not think the existence or publication of SEC filings (...) unless it attracted secondary sources discussing it.). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 15:32, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Secretive Research And Tax Avoidance

I only just noticed the large section that Tigraan set up and I respect Tigraan for doing so, but my alerts don't show any ping from Tigraan to this page.

I recent the notion that setting up shell companies doesn't qualify as a controversy simply because the practice is rampant.

I do not believe that SOMO is a biased source, but that risk does exist. That issue should be resolved as soon as another separate source shows up.

I think the comparisons to Theranos came from multiple credible sources and accurately describe how Moderna was perceived at the time.

To claim that this does no longer hold weight is both an attempt to erase history and an overly bold claim about Moderna in and of itself.

@Tigraan: You are invited to the Moderna Talk Page. Surge Of Reason (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

@Aoi: You are invited to the Moderna Talk Page. Surge Of Reason (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

@Zefr: You are invited to the Moderna Talk Page. Surge Of Reason (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

@Acroterion: You are invited to the Moderna Talk Page. Surge Of Reason (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

@Surge Of Reason: You are invited to the Moderna Talk Page. Surge Of Reason (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. There is an open RfC immediately above this section regarding the taxation issue, so I would suggest you move your comments regarding that issue there (under the heading Discussion). Regarding your comments on the Theranos comparisons, Wikipedia is not a newspaper, so how the company was "viewed at the time" is not the standard by which content should be added to this article. For one thing, Moderna's vaccine actually works, so I don't see how this comparison is at all due. What's more, looking at the text, two of the sources used to make the Theranos comparison are 1) an article in Market Watch that makes the comparison based on a single tweet from an unnamed user and 2) a discredited anti-vaccine propaganda outlet. The other two sources are better, but I don't think the coverage is significant enough to merit a full subsection. That said, I would not oppose a brief mention of this issue in the "history" section that does not give the issue undue weight. Aoi (青い) (talk) 19:59, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I would consider those comments to be a significant part of its history. If you don't like Market Watch and Children's Defense I can get you The Philadelphia Inquirer, Thrillist, Times Square Investment Journal With pharmaceutical companies you often don't find out until years have passed that there was something seriously wrong with a drug or how it was made, or marketed, etc. You and others may end up wishing one day that people had the information they needed. Surge Of Reason (talk) 22:13, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

2023 update

User:Zefr, I see that you reverted my edit as WP:NOTNEWS, but how is the content any different from what the article currently has under the 2022 section? - Indefensible (talk) 20:21, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree - the whole "History" section is a news mess needing major revision. Zefr (talk) 20:56, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Removing a single edit is inconsistent then. I think it should all be kept for encyclopedic inclusion, but reverting my edit makes no sense if there is no difference in content type from what is already there. - Indefensible (talk) 21:32, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

A news item added to a news mess doesn't make sense. News is unencyclopedic. WP:NOTNEWS: "Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories." "...most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion." Rewriting the History section will take some research and work - I may get to it unless other editors get there first. Zefr (talk) 21:47, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

It's not just "news," it's relevant information providing an update on a product in development. Not going to waste time arguing with you on it, just more inclusionist than you on Wiki philosophy. Hope someone else will restore the information, or will review any rewrites on the history section that you make. Cheers. - Indefensible (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

A concise History section

With this revision, I abbreviated the History section to show milestone events, which Moderna presents as its "big moments". The revision compares to the history section of Moderna competitor, BioNTech. As a relatively still-young company with only two marketed products (Spikevax and the bivalent booster), Moderna does not have an extensive history; by WP:NOTEVERYTHING, its history can be stated concisely.

Much of the previous history version was congested with 1) excessive discussion of the founders, each of whom has his own Wikipedia article mentioning Moderna; 2) corporate news events, which are unencyclopedic, WP:NOTNEWS (see above talk section); and 3) progress in developing the COVID-19 vaccine, which has its own article. Open for discussion and further revisions of significant history. Zefr (talk) 21:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

You took out too much in my opinion, for example the partnerships with Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Lonza Group are entirely unmentioned now. Still, good work cleaning it up. - Indefensible (talk) 05:28, 23 February 2023 (UTC)