Moderna Co-Founder Calls for Urgent AI Agent Regulation, Citing Drug Industry Lessons

Noubar Afeyan, billionaire biotech mogul and co-founder of Moderna, has issued an urgent call for government regulation of autonomous AI agents being deployed commercially by technology companies, warning that delayed oversight risks repeating catastrophic failures from pharmaceutical history. Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi on October 13, Afeyan invoked the thalidomide tragedy of the 1950s and 1960s—in which a drug taken by pregnant women caused severe birth defects—as a cautionary precedent for why companies must establish safety protocols before release.