The next ‘Massachusetts Miracle’ – The Boston Globe

The next is an excerpt of a speech that Noubar Afeyan, founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, delivered to the MassBio “State of Doable” convention on Might 6.

At Flagship Pioneering, we begin our scientific explorations by asking “What If?” to think about a future final result or functionality, unconstrained by what appears doable at this time. In 2010 we requested: What if sufferers might make medication inside their very own our bodies? The reply led us to create LS18 — our 18th life science firm — higher often known as Moderna.

Since then, the protection and efficacy of mRNA vaccines, and the velocity at which they had been developed and deployed, has been hailed as miraculous. This characterization is becoming, because the firm and its innovation emerged from what I consider because the “Second Massachusetts Miracle” — the rise and eventual international preeminence of this space’s outstanding biotech sector and its collective efforts combating COVID.

Many will bear in mind the primary “Massachusetts Miracle,” when, after a 60-year chapter of atrophy and decline, the area roared again within the Nineteen Eighties, largely resulting from Boston and Cambridge’s dominance in a very powerful merchandise of the a long time that adopted: massive brains and massive concepts.

Labs at Harvard and MIT spun out know-how corporations that dotted Route 128, fueling the financial comeback, and by the late 80s it regarded like Massachusetts was poised to grow to be the know-how and innovation capital of the world. However . . . it didn’t. Northern California and Silicon Valley had been faster to undertake a startup tradition, and sprinted forward by the following 30 years.

Extra lately, nonetheless, innovation momentum has shifted again our means. The brand new merchandise and platforms now driving progress heart on the private pc often known as the human physique. The world in and round Kendall Sq. has grow to be the epicenter of the biotech growth, and the identical strengths that fueled the primary Massachusetts Miracle — top-notch educational establishments, sensible individuals and their daring concepts, and prepared funding to scale the businesses that outcome — are fueling firm creation and job development as soon as once more.

There are compelling causes for biotech entrepreneurs to double down on this area: shut proximity to the world’s main universities, powerhouse analysis establishments, available threat capital, a wealthy life-sciences community, and entrepreneurial expertise. The identical iconoclastic considering that challenges technological orthodoxy additionally stimulates social innovation, propelled by cultural range and manifested by management right here in Massachusetts on points from common well being care protection to basic human rights.

It’s no marvel that when the world was delivered to its knees two years in the past by the coronavirus pandemic, it was the businesses on this space that introduced concerning the second Massachusetts Miracle: diagnostics, vaccines, and coverings to battle COVID at document velocity. I’m not simply speaking about Moderna. The contributions of corporations like Ginkgo, ThermoFisher Scientific, MilliporeSigma, CIC Well being, the Broad Institute, Hologic, Meenta, and others helped to avoid wasting tens of millions of lives.

What this second Massachusetts Miracle taught us is that this: After we act collectively, innovate with urgency, and take dangers within the title of large potential impression, miracles can occur. And our problem now could be to keep up momentum and likewise reinvest in seeding new miracles.

Actually, our area is uniquely poised to construct a 3rd Massachusetts Miracle — reworking our present sick-care system to a real well being care system.

We should think about a future through which we safe our well being as an alternative of resigning ourselves to getting sick and solely then receiving therapy. Illness preemption is desperately wanted, and more and more doable. Rising diagnostics and interventions can enhance not solely our lifespan, however extra importantly our “healthspan”: the time period we are able to stay in a wholesome state freed from illness.

We should ask: What if?

▪ What if we might truly catch illness early, earlier than it takes maintain, and intervene to delay it or utterly derail it?

▪ What if we might, from a small draw of blood, detect pre-cancer exercise in our cells, in addition to tissue of origin?

▪ What if we might measure our antibody ranges at residence, evaluating our threat and planning accordingly when contagious illness circumstances are excessive?

▪ What if we might design a World Pathogen Protect, creating vaccines for virus variants which have but to emerge?

Innovators on this area could make these aspirations a actuality: They’re already doing so. On daily basis in Cambridge and Boston, scientific pioneers are taking the fiction out of science fiction. Our objective now needs to be to direct the molecular understanding and precision instruments we now have developed to deal with late-stage illness towards catching and treating pre-diseases, and towards extending our healthspan. We will intervene earlier than illnesses take maintain, and permit our residents to stay more healthy lives. Massachusetts has all of the instruments in hand to make this miracle occur, if we summon the desire.