RNA medicine enters its second act
By Joachim Eeckhout, June 11, 2026
INNOVATION The COVID-19 pandemic trans- formed RNA technologies into one of the most visible scientific breakthroughs of the decade. mRNA vaccines demonstrated unprecedented speed of development, large-scale manufacturing capability and global deployment, pushing RNA therapeutics into the public spotlight. But according to companies working in the field, the pandemic was not the beginning of the RNA story. Instead, it acceler- ated technologies that had already been under de- velopment for years.
“RNA therapeutics were actually being developed in oncology well before COVID-19,” explains Jon Moore, Chief Scientific Of- ficer of Epitopea. “Companies such as Bi- oNTech and Moderna had already been working on personalised cancer vaccines for many years before the pandemic, with publications dating back to at least 2016.” What changed during COVID-19 was the validation of RNA at industrial scale. “COVID-19 really demonstrated the speed, scalability and safety profile of mRNA technology,” Moore says. “The pandemic accelerated public awareness and validated the platform at a global scale.”
Today, the field is rapidly evolving be- yond vaccines into oncology, cardio- vascular medicine, autoimmune disease and gene regulation. Increasingly, RNA is being viewed not as a single product cate- gory, but as a programmable therapeutic platform.
