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Vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech have come in a record time compared to other vaccines. However, the power of messenger RNA is one thing that made all the difference.

Early in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has spread in Wuhan, China and it didn’t take long before it spread out to the whole world. The dangerous new pathogen has caused chaos in the health sector across the globe, and the worst part is, its collateral damages on the economy are far worse.

The world shifts focus to vaccines

Consequently, the world’s focus was shifted to finding ways of eradicating the virus so things can go back to normal. Moderna’s chief executive, Stephane Bancel, and BioNTech’s chief, Dr. Ugur Sahin, that they started turning their ships, they told CNBC in interviews for a documentary released Friday about the vaccine race.

“The night that China locked down Wuhan, I’m like: ‘When was the last time I know a city has been locked down because of an infectious disease?’” Bancel recalled. “And what goes through my mind is: what do the Chinese know that we don’t know?“

 Bancel said he awoke sweating at 4 a.m., realizing, “Jeez, there’s going to be a pandemic like 1918.”

For Sahin, it was reading a paper in the Lancet in late January describing the outbreak in China.

“I did several calculations, fast calculations, and realized it had already spread,” Sahin said. “And it was clear that it was already too late to stop the disease.”

The focus of BioNTtech back then was on personalized cancer therapies. The company contacted Pfizer to work together on a vaccine for the novel coronavirus while using the same technology as well as messenger RNA.

 “We had the first contact a few days after starting the project,” Sahin said. “At that time, Pfizer was not yet interested.”

Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s CEO, confirmed Sahin’s account, saying in the earliest months of 2020, he was focused on maintaining the company’s operations in China. But by late February, he said, he’d determined Pfizer needed to work on treatment and a vaccine.

“What is the best approach?” Bourla said he asked his team.

Kathrin Jansen, head of Pfizer’s vaccine research and development, said they assessed all existing technologies, including protein-based vaccines and vaccines using viral vectors.

“They all have too few pros and too many cons,” she said.

Meanwhile, other companies such as Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca have chosen to partner with Oxford University. They both focused on viral-vector vaccines while Sanofi and Novavax relied more on proven technology in protein-based vaccines.