José M. Vega

José M. Vega was appointed Chief Safety Officer of Moderna January 2021. Dr. Vega joined Moderna from Merck (NYSE: MRK) where he led the Global Clinical Safety and Pharmacovigilance organization and served as the Chief Safety Officer for Merck Research Laboratories (MRL) since 2013. In this role, he led a global team of nearly 600 safety and pharmacovigilance professionals in Clinical Safety Risk Management, Medical Safety Review, Global Pharmacovigilance, and the EU Qualified Person for Pharmacovigilance (QPPV) groups.

Prior to Merck, Dr. Vega spent 10 years at Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN), where he held the role of Vice President, Global Safety for more than 5 years and led global efforts for safety signal detection and assessment, pharmacovigilance, pharmacoepidemiology, and therapeutic area safety. Upon joining Amgen in 2003, Dr. Vega led the Proof of Concept Group in Early Development and served for several years as the Vice President and Therapeutic Area Head for General Medicine in Global Clinical Development.

Between 1997 and 2003, Dr. Vega served in roles of increasing responsibility at Merck Research Laboratories, initially in Clinical Pharmacology and then in the role of Senior Director in Clinical Drug Metabolism. Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Vega practiced and taught at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School as an emergency department attending physician for 5 years and as part of an academic primary care and internal medicine practice for more than 2 years.

Dr. Vega has been a member of the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) Steering Committee since 2008, representing Amgen from 2008 to 2013 and Merck since 2014. He has been a member of the TransCelerate Pharmacovigilance Steering Committee since 2016 and chaired the committee from 2016 to 2018.

Dr. Vega received a B.A. in Biochemical Sciences summa cum laude from Harvard College and an M.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University. Dr. Vega received his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School and completed his internal medicine internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.