Moderna and U.S. near deal to develop shots to fight Ebola, other threats – Bloomberg
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Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) shares rose on Wednesday after Bloomberg reported that the company and the U.S. Department of Defense are close to ink a deal to develop messenger-RNA-based vaccines targeting multiple biological threats, including the Ebola virus.
Per the terms of the contract, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech will work with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to advance its mRNA-based vaccine technology, according to people familiar with the matter.
Modernaâs (MRNA) vaccine is designed to target Sudan ebolavirus, which has no proven vaccines or treatments, as well as the more common Zaire species and the related Marburg virus, one of the people said.
The company did not respond to requests for comments on the deal. The financial terms of the contract remain unclear. 
Sudan species of Ebola, one of the four known Ebola viruses to cause hemorrhagic fever in humans, sparked an outbreak in Uganda in September, leading to 95 infections so far.
In 2018, UTMB, in partnership with Moderna (MRNA) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), developed two vaccine candidates against Ebola. Despite demonstrating efficacy in the pre-clinical stage, the mRNA-based shots did not advance to clinical settings.
Last week, Reuters reported that U.S. provided Uganda with COVID-19 antiviral Remdesivir developed by Gilead (GILD) to fight the Ebola outbreak.