Everest Medicines appoints former Moderna scientists to strengthen global mRNA research
Both executives previously held leadership positions at Moderna, where they worked on messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer vaccines, including mRNA-4157/V940.
CHINA—Everest Medicines has appointed Lakshmi Srinivasan, PhD, as Senior Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine, and Brandon Coder, PhD, as Vice President of Translational Sciences and Discovery, to strengthen its global mRNA research and development capabilities.
Both executives previously held leadership positions at Moderna, where they worked on messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer vaccines, including mRNA-4157/V940.
Their appointments will support Everest’s clinical development programmes, expansion in the United States and collaboration between its US and China research teams.
Leadership experience in cancer vaccines
Srinivasan brings 20 years of experience in immunology and immuno-oncology, spanning cancer vaccines, mRNA lipid nanoparticle technologies and T-cell therapies.
Before joining Everest, she served as Executive Director and Head of Oncology Translational Medicine at Moderna from 2023 to 2025.
She also held leadership roles at Repertoire Immune Medicines, Neon Therapeutics and Sanofi Oncology.
Her research has focused on translating personalised neoantigen vaccines from laboratory studies into clinical development.
She was the corresponding author on Phase 1b studies of NEO-PV-01 published in Cell in 2020 and Cancer Cell in 2022.
She also co-authored research on Moderna’s intismeran autogene, known as mRNA-4157/V940, including the Phase 1 KEYNOTE-603 study published in Cancer Discovery in 2024 and three-year follow-up results from the Phase 2b KEYNOTE-942 study published in JCO Oncology Advances in 2026.
Coder has more than 11 years of industry experience developing T-cell immunotherapies, cancer vaccines and in vivo chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies.
He worked at Moderna from 2019 to 2025, most recently as Associate Scientific Director of Cancer Vaccine Research.
He also served as research and global pharmacology lead for mRNA-4157/V940 and contributed to nine investigational new drug (IND) submissions.
At Moderna, Coder co-invented and led the development of antigen discovery and vaccine design frameworks for mRNA-4359 and mRNA-4106.
Earlier in his career, he was Associate Director of Immuno-Oncology Research at Advaxis Immunotherapies, where he worked on personalised and off-the-shelf cancer vaccines.
Everest Medicines Chairman Yifang Wu said the appointments would strengthen the company’s global research capabilities and support development of its proprietary mRNA platform and broader pipeline.
Positive Phase 3 results support the sector
The appointments follow progress in the mRNA cancer vaccine field.
In August 2026, Moderna and Merck reported that mRNA-4157/V940, combined with Keytruda, met the primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival and the key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival in the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 study.
The findings marked the first positive Phase 3 results for an individualised neoantigen therapy and an mRNA-based cancer therapy, strengthening the clinical evidence supporting this approach.
Everest advances its oncology pipeline
Everest is developing oncology vaccines and in vivo CAR-T therapies using its proprietary artificial intelligence and mRNA platform.
Its personalised cancer vaccine EVM16 has completed its first-in-human data readout, with the company reporting a favourable safety and tolerability profile, strong immunogenicity and preliminary efficacy signals.
Following the Phase 1a study, Everest plans to initiate a Phase 1b investigator-initiated trial in the fourth quarter of 2026 and submit a US IND application in the first half of 2027.
EVM14, an off-the-shelf tumour-associated antigen mRNA vaccine, received US Food and Drug Administration IND clearance and approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration in 2025.
Its Phase 1 dose-escalation study is expected to finish in the first quarter of 2027.
Meanwhile, EVM18 has entered an investigator-initiated study for autoimmune diseases, with global IND filings underway.
Everest also plans to advance IND preparations for EVM15, an off-the-shelf immunomodulatory cancer vaccine, following preclinical proof of concept and selection of a clinical candidate.
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