IN 1908 ASHTON VALVE COMPANY built a factory on the corner of Binney Street and First Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In what was a high-tech industry of the day, it made gauges, valves, whistles, clocks and other gadgets that helped make steam boilers less susceptible to blowing up and killing people. Just over 100 years later, in 2010, another purveyor of a life-saving technology moved into Ashton’s long-abandoned premises: Moderna.
In the past year the biotech darling has become synonymous with the fight against covid-19. Its ingenious mRNA vaccine has, like a similar one developed by Pfizer, an American drug giant, and BioNTech, a German startup, saved millions of lives.
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