How Moderna Uses IBM Quantum Computing to Advance mRNA Medicine Development

Moderna, the biotechnology company behind the Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine, faces an extraordinary computational challenge in developing new mRNA medicines. The company must identify optimal mRNA sequences from an astronomically large number of possibilities to treat diseases — ensuring sequences accurately encode target proteins, maintain molecular stability, achieve sufficient production quantities, and avoid triggering immune responses.

Classical computing reaches its limits with these computationally intensive optimization problems, particularly in understanding mRNA secondary structure prediction which involves solving complex combinatorial optimization problems. Recognizing this limitation, Moderna partnered with IBM Quantum to explore how quantum computing could accelerate their research.

The collaboration combines variational quantum algorithms with Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR), a risk-assessment technique borrowed from finance, to improve algorithm performance. This hybrid quantum-classical approach focuses optimization on lower-energy solutions with minimal computational overhead, using instantaneous quantum polynomial circuit-based quantum optimization for efficient resource utilization.

In 2024, the team set records by simulating 60 nucleotide sequences using 80 qubits on IBM's Heron processor — surpassing the previous record of 42 nucleotides. By 2025, they applied 156 qubits with circuits containing 950 non-local gates, demonstrating one of the largest and most advanced variational quantum algorithm executions on quantum hardware. The results successfully matched those of commercial classical solvers, validating the quantum approach for real-world pharmaceutical applications.