Astrazeneca ups interest in Moderna Therapeutics with $140m investment

(ShareCast News) - Astrazeneca has upped its equity interest in Moderna Therapeutics with a $140m investment as part of the biotechnology company's preferred-stock financing.Astrazeneca had already purchased a stake in Massachusetts-based Moderna to develop messenger RNA medicines for the potential treatment of selected areas of cardiovascular, metabolic and renal diseases as well as oncology. The companies also joined forces in January of this year to develop and commercialise medicine candidates for the treatment of a range of cancers.Following Wednesday's investment, AZN now owns around 9% of Moderna on a fully-diluted basis.Moderna is a clinical stage pioneer of messenger RNA Therapeutics - a new in vivo drug technology that produces human proteins, antibodies and entirely novel protein constructs inside patient cells, which are in turn secreted or active intracellularly. This platform addresses currently undruggable targets and offers a superior alternative to existing drug modalities for a wide range of diseases and conditions.At 1516 BST, AstraZeneca shares were down 0.4% to 5,158p.