The FDA’s approval of Moderna’s mRNA-based seasonal flu vaccine — the first of its kind — is being welcomed by pharmaceutical industry veterans as proof that mRNA technology has a future well beyond COVID-19.
So said Dr. William Soliman, a former pharmaceutical executive who spent nearly two decades in medical affairs and sales roles at companies including Merck, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie and Gilead Sciences.
“This is a major scientific milestone: the first FDA-approved mRNA flu vaccine shows that the technology is not a one-pandemic platform,” he said. “Moderna’s vaccine reduced confirmed flu cases by roughly 27% compared with a standard-dose shot, and mRNA’s faster manufacturing could eventually allow vaccines to better match the strains actually circulating.”
Soliman is the founder and CEO of the Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs, which trains and certifies pharmaceutical industry professionals, and founder of White Manna Capital Partners, a healthcare and life sciences investment fund. He said the approval could open the door to broader use of mRNA technology across other disease areas.
“This shows that mRNA extends beyond COVID and could become a mainstay mechanism platform for other therapeutic areas,” Soliman said.
The approval also seemingly gives Moderna an entry point into the multibillion‑dollar seasonal flu market — a predictable, annually recurring business that could help stabilize mRNA revenue beyond COVID.
In a column published in May on the industry site Advancing RNA, Soliman laid out where he sees that expansion happening: oncology, where mRNA cancer vaccines are already a major area of investment for companies including Moderna, BioNTech and Merck; cardiometabolic disease, where mRNA could eventually complement or extend the growing GLP-1 obesity drug market; and infectious disease more broadly.
Soliman wrote that mRNA is “now being explored for influenza, RSV, CMV, HIV, personalized infectious disease vaccines, and even antimicrobial resistance strategies.”
But Soliman cautioned that the flu vaccine approval doesn’t settle every clinical question.
“For adults 65 and older, we still need direct evidence showing how this vaccine performs against the high-dose and adjuvanted flu vaccines already preferred for seniors,” he said. “Moderna must conduct a post-approval study, and patients should also know that short-term side effects were more common, although generally mild and brief.”
