Good morning. I'm Noubar Afeyan, Chairman of the Board of Moderna. Thank you for joining us this morning, and welcome to the Moderna 2022 Annual Stockholders Meeting. Before I call the meeting to order, I'd like to introduce to you the members of the board and the executives who are joining us today. I'm accompanied in person here today by Stéphane Bancel, our CEO and a fellow director. The rest of our board is joining us virtually today, Stephen Berenson, Sandra Horning, Robert Langer, Elizabeth Nabel, François Nader, Paul Sagan, and Elizabeth Tallett. Moderna is indeed fortunate to have such a capable and committed board who partner with management in making sure Moderna can have a positive impact on human health as much as possible.
The officers of the company joining us in person and virtually today are Juan Andres, Paul Burton, Kate Cronin, Marcello Damiani, Tracey Franklin, Stephen Hoge, Shannon Klinger, and David Meline. Miss Klinger, Moderna's Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, will serve as the secretary for this meeting. I would also like to introduce Pam Kelleher of Ernst & Young, Moderna's independent registered public accounting firm, who is available to respond to appropriate questions. The meeting will now officially come to order. We will proceed with the formal business of the meeting as set forth in your notice of annual meeting and proxy statement, which was sent to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 1, 2022. Following the presentation of the proposals and before the polling is closed, there will be an opportunity for shareholders to submit questions specific to those items.
After the formal part of our meeting, I'll ask Stéphane to join me in addressing the questions we received from shareholders in advance of the meeting, and to the extent time permits, we will also address questions that are submitted by shareholders through the virtual meeting platform that have not already been addressed. The meeting will be conducted in accordance with the rules of conduct that you have access to on the meeting website. Will the secretary please report at this time with respect to the mailing of the notice of the meeting and the stockholders list?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have posted on the virtual platform a complete list of the stockholders of record of the company's common stock on March 1, 2022, the record date for this meeting. Shareholders of record on that date are entitled to vote at this meeting. A duplicate record of the list of stockholders has been on file with the Secretary of the company for the last 10 days prior to the date of this meeting and has been available for inspection by any stockholder during that period at any time during normal business hours in accordance with Delaware law.
I also have an affidavit certifying that commencing March tenth, 2022, the company's annual report on Form 10-K, annual meeting notice, proxy statement, and proxy card were deposited in the U.S. Mail to each of the stockholders of record at the close of business on March first, 2022, designated to receive full set of deliveries.
At this time, I'd like to introduce Jennifer Borden. Ms. Borden has been appointed by the board to act as Inspector of Election at this meeting. She has taken and subscribed the customary oath of office to execute her duties with strict impartiality. We will file this oath with the records of the meeting. Her function is to decide upon the qualifications of voters, accept their votes, and when balloting on all matters is completed, to tally the final votes. Will the secretary please report at this time with respect to the existence of a quorum?
I have been informed by the Inspector of Election that proxies have been received for at least a majority of the shares of common stock outstanding on the record date. This constitutes a quorum for the meeting today, and we may now carry out the official business of the meeting.
Will the secretary please review the voting procedures?
Voting today is by proxy and virtual ballot. It is not necessary for stockholders to vote by virtual ballot if they have already submitted their proxy cards unless they wish to change their vote. Virtual ballots are available for any stockholder who wishes to vote by virtual ballot or to change their vote. Stockholders who are logged in using their control number may change their vote by clicking on the vote link on the website. Your submission of a virtual ballot will revoke all prior proxies. Each share of common stock is entitled to one vote.
We will now proceed with the formal business of this meeting in the agenda that is accessible to you on the meeting website. There are four matters to be considered by the stockholders at this meeting. The election of directors, approval of a non-binding advisory vote to approve the compensation of our executive officers, the ratification of the independent registered public accounting firm, Ernst & Young LLP, for the year ended December 31, 2022, and the shareholder proposal requesting a third-party report on the feasibility of transferring intellectual property. The secretary will now declare the polls open.
The Virtual Voting tab is now open for voting on all matters to be presented. The Virtual Voting tab will be closed to voting after we go through the matters to be voted upon. Questions that are specific to these items may be submitted on the platform.
The first item of business is the election of Class One directors to serve until the 2025 annual meeting and until their successors are duly elected and qualified or such directors earlier death, resignation, or removal. Based on the recommendation of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board, the nominees for Class One director are Noubar Afeyan, Stéphane Bancel, and François Nader. All three nominees are current members of our board, and all three have consented to serve if elected. For Proposal one, the election requires a plurality of votes of the shares of our common stock entitled to vote. No other persons have been nominated in accordance with the company's amended and restated bylaws. The nominations are now closed. The board of directors unanimously recommends that stockholders vote in favor of this proposal.
The second item of business today is the approval on a non-binding advisory basis of the compensation of our named executive officers. As required by Section 14A(a)(1) of the Exchange Act, the board is providing the stockholders with an opportunity to approve on a non-binding advisory basis the compensation of our named executive officers as described in detail in the proxy. The board unanimously recommends that stockholders vote for approval on a non-binding advisory basis of the compensation of the company's named executive officers. The third item of business today is the ratification of the selection by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of Ernst & Young LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022.
For proposal three, a majority of the votes properly cast is required in order to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young. In the event that a majority of the votes properly cast do not ratify this appointment of Ernst & Young, we will review our future appointment of Ernst & Young. The final item of business today is a vote on the shareholder proposal submitted by Oxfam America and Domini Impact Investments, requesting that the board commission a third report, a third-party report assessing the feasibility of transferring the company's intellectual property to manufacturers in low and middle-income countries. Oxfam America has asked Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the World Health Organization to present their proposal, and he has submitted a recorded statement. Operator, will you please play the statement?
Dear Moderna shareholders, my name is Tedros, and I'm the Director-General of the World Health Organization. I'm pleased to speak on behalf of a resolution filed by Oxfam. I congratulate the scientists, both public and private, who created the COVID-19 vaccines. Unfortunately, this scientific triumph has been marred by a failure of humanity to share. While 11.4 billion vaccines have now been distributed around the world, a third of the world has not had a single dose. This global vaccine inequity will lead to many more unnecessary deaths and add to the global economic toll, which IMF estimates at $13.8 trillion. WHO's target remains vaccinating 70% of people in every country by the middle of this year, prioritizing health workers, older people, and at-risk groups. The world is not on track to accomplish this.
Since new variants and future pandemics require new vaccines, the sustainable solution is local production. This is why WHO launched the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub, operating with a network of more than ten countries, our spokes. Despite our requests, Moderna has so far declined to share technology or know-how with the WHO hub. This delays our life-saving work. If Moderna worked with us, we could submit the hub's vaccine for approval at least one year sooner, which would save lives, decrease the risk of variants, and reduce the pandemic's economic toll. We urge Moderna to share technology and know-how with the WHO hub and commit to not enforcing patents for COVID-19 and other essential vaccines in countries hosting the WHO hub and spokes. We also urge them to offer training to scientists working on those efforts through the Moderna mRNA Access Program.
Together with Oxfam, we urge shareholders to support this proposal that Moderna analyze the feasibility of transferring technology to facilitate the production of COVID-19 vaccines by qualified manufacturers in low and middle-income countries. I thank you.
On behalf of Moderna's board and over 3,000 dedicated team members, I thank Dr. Tedros for his statement and for the work he leads at the WHO. The board of directors and management of Moderna deeply respects the work that has been done by the World Health Organization and the global public health community under very difficult circumstances during the pandemic. We recognize that expanding access to COVID-19 vaccines is key to ending the pandemic, as does the WHO. However, we respectfully disagree on the most effective means of achieving this goal, and for this reason, your board of directors recommend that stockholders vote against this proposal for the reasons set forth in the proxy. Let me start by stating that we have long been committed to producing and making as much of our COVID-19 vaccine available as possible to satisfy demand in low and middle-income countries.
To accomplish this, we have made significant investments in expanding our manufacturing capacity, we have actively worked to facilitate moving doses to those countries that need them, and we are committed to ensuring that our intellectual property or concerns about enforcement of our intellectual property do not pose a barrier to access. In fact, in October we were the first and only company to pledge not to enforce our patents for those making vaccines to fight COVID-19 during the pandemic. We have since announced that Moderna will never enforce its COVID-19 intellectual property rights in the Gavi eligible AMC 92 countries or against manufacturers who are producing COVID-19 vaccines for distribution in those markets.
Our investments in expanding manufacturing capacity were made with a view towards supplying low and middle-income countries, and we are proud of our commitment to provide up to 650 million doses to COVAX and up to 110 million doses to the African Union. Our efforts, and those of our more than half a dozen manufacturing partners, have produced significant results, and this year we anticipate that our capacity will be more than sufficient to meet demand. In recent weeks, we have seen COVAX and the African Union defer or decline hundreds of millions of doses, including more than 300 million doses that were prepared to deliver to COVAX later this year. As a result, Moderna is in the process of idling or winding down manufacturing arrangements with some contract manufacturing organizations in response to the fact that these doses have been declined.
Asking us to transfer intellectual property so that some manufacturers can scale up while others who are ready to produce are ramping down is simply not a solution that will help expedite the end of the pandemic. We are committed to ensuring that future pandemics do not present the same problems with vaccine access, and we are excited to have announced plans to build an mRNA manufacturing facility in Kenya to ensure Africa will have its own dedicated supply of mRNA vaccines in the future. We are proud to contribute to creating an ecosystem of trained personnel with the knowledge of how to make mRNA medicines in Africa as called for by the WHO. We realize there's a lot of interest in this topic, as there should be, and Stéphane will provide more detail when we get to the Q&A. We will now proceed with the voting.
Anyone who is voting by virtual ballot and has not already done so during the meeting, please click on the voting button on the virtual platform and mark your virtual ballot now. We will give everyone a moment to mark their virtual ballots. The Inspector of Elections will not accept virtual ballots, proxies, or votes, or any changes or revocations submitted after the closing of the polls. The time is now 8:15 A.M. on April 28, 2022, and the polls for each matter to be voted on at this meeting are now closed for voting. No additional virtual ballots, proxies, or votes, and no changes or revocations will be accepted. May we have the preliminary results of the voting?
Preliminary report of the Inspector of Election covering the proposals presented at this meeting is as follows. Regarding the first proposal, each of Noubar Afeyan, Stéphane Bancel, and François Nader have received the requisite number of votes in favor of his election and each has been elected as a class one director. The second proposal to approve on a non-binding advisory basis, the compensation of our named executive officers has received the requisite number of the votes in favor, and the compensation of the named executive officers is approved. The third proposal to ratify the selection of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2022, has received the requisite number of the votes in favor of their ratification. Their appointment is ratified.
The shareholder proposal requesting a report on the feasibility of transferring intellectual property submitted by Oxfam America has received support from holders of approximately 24% of our shares outstanding. As such, the shareholder proposal has not received the requisite number of votes in favor and is not approved by the shareholders of the company. The final results of voting, including any virtual ballots and proxies recorded during this meeting, will be set forth in the report of the Inspector of Elections and will be included in the minutes of the meeting. We will report our final voting results and a current report on Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC within four business days.
I declare that all of the management proposals presented at the meeting have been ratified or approved by the stockholders and that the shareholder proposal has not been approved. There being no further business, the annual meeting is now adjourned. Let me now ask Stéphane Bancel, our Chief Executive Officer, and Shannon Klinger, our Chief Legal Officer, to join me by making a few remarks and to assist in addressing the questions that we received from shareholders in advance of the meeting. To the extent time permits, we will also address those questions that are submitted by shareholders during this meeting.
Before we begin, please note that during the Q&A session, we will be making forward-looking statements as contemplated by the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please see the accompanying presentation in our SEC filings for important risk factors that could cause our actual performance and results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update or revise the information provided during this presentation as a result of new information or future results or developments.
Thank you, Noubar and Shannon. Good morning or good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us today for Moderna 2022 annual meeting. I would like to thank the more than 100 shareholders who wrote in with questions, and thank all of you who voted today. We will try to address your questions by topic, as many of you wrote with similar inquiries. I would like also to encourage you to dive into our quarterly earnings calls and our investor days, such as our upcoming Science Day on May seventeenth, where we regularly provide updates on our pipeline and our development efforts, as well as other business updates. A number of you asked questions about our ongoing efforts with our COVID-19 vaccine. We are proud that our COVID-19 vaccine has been used to protect hundreds of millions of people around the globe.
Over 800 million doses of our vaccine were shipped last year, and 25% of those went to low and middle-income countries, either through direct sales or donations from other countries that Moderna helped facilitate. mRNA-1273, or COVID-19 vaccine, has been approved for use in more than 70 countries and by the WHO. In January 2021, mRNA-1273 was Moderna's first product to get a full BLA approval from the U.S. FDA for use in adults 18 years old and over, in addition to full approvals in EU, Canada, and many other countries. We are committed to adapting our COVID-19 vaccine as the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to evolve. We have multiple vaccine candidates that are tailored to variants of concern that are currently in clinical trials.
We recently announced promising data that suggests our bivalent vaccine, which combine our original vaccine and the vaccine that is tailored to variants, can produce a superior antibody response compared to mRNA-1273 alone. We have demonstrated our ability to develop vaccine tailored to variants of concern quite quickly. We saw this in our effort to develop an Omicron-specific vaccine shortly after the variant was identified in November 2021, and we're able to proceed to a phase II trial in just over two months from the time of identification of the variant. We're also continuing to assess what the optimal strategy will be for boosters as the Northern Hemisphere enters the fall in the second half of 2022.
This includes assessing a booster of our prototype vaccine, mRNA-1273 at the authorized dose of 50 micrograms, an Omicron-specific booster candidate, and a bivalent booster candidate combining our Omicron-specific booster candidate and mRNA-1273. Some of our investors ask about our ability to meet demand for COVID-19 vaccine this year. Thanks to the investment that we have made in 2020 and beginning in early 2021 in expanding our manufacturing capacity, we are comfortable with our ability to meet the demand for booster doses that we anticipate receiving this year. I encourage you to listen to the presentation we gave during our Vaccine Day on March 24, and that is available to replay on our investor relations webpage, where we address a number of questions that were submitted, including questions about our strategy for boosters. We will also provide further updates on our earnings call next week.
A handful of shareholders asked about the steps we have taken to supply our COVID-19 vaccine to low-income countries around the world. Noubar mentioned earlier, we are committed as a company to helping end the pandemic as soon as possible and to ensure access to our vaccine. As I noted a few moments ago, we delivered approximately 800 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to more than 60 countries around the world in 2021. With more than 200 million doses, approximately 25% of the total being delivered to low- and middle-income countries. Consistent with our publicly announced pricing framework, we have worked to ensure that our vaccine is accessible regardless of a government's ability to pay, and we are committed to provide Gavi-eligible countries our lowest price. Our overall strategy to ensure access to our vaccine is focused on five pillars.
Pillar number one, not enforcing our IP rights related to COVID-19 in AMC 92 countries, the low-income countries in the world. Pillar number two, supporting COVAX through direct supply agreement to COVAX. Pillar number three, facilitating donations where excess supply exists like we have done with the U.S. and Europe and many other countries that have generously given doses to low-income countries. Pillar number four, providing Africa with manufacturing capabilities which we plan to establish in Kenya. Pillar number five, expanding our internal and external manufacturing capacity. As we execute on our strategy in 2022, we are committed to providing our vaccines where it is needed. However, as Noubar noted, we have also seen recently COVAX refuse options for more than 320 million doses, which was supposed to be shipped in 2022.
In addition, the African Union has also declined more than 100 million doses for which we had options. We will continue to pursue actions that are aimed at closing the vaccine access gaps over the long term. In addition to our commitment to build an mRNA manufacturing plant in Kenya, staffed with local personnel, we're looking at other ways of closing the gap. Since early 2021, we have been developing a next generation COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA-1283, which is designed to be stable at refrigerator temperatures. Our hope is that this vaccine will help address many of the challenges that developing countries face with cold chain storage requirements, that this will help us close the last mile to get more vaccine into arms.
We continue to believe that the efforts we have taken at each stage of a pandemic have been the most effective means of deploying Moderna's technology to combat the pandemic. We know this is an area of intense interest from a wide variety of stakeholders, and we are committed to acting transparently as we address this critical issue. A number of shareholders ask questions relating to our combination respiratory vaccine strategy. As we discussed at Vaccine Day in March, we are developing various pieces of our combination respiratory vaccine in parallel. Those pieces currently focus on COVID-19, on flu, on RSV, and other respiratory viruses that impact young children and older adults. In March, we announced mRNA-1230, our combination respiratory vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2 and flu and RSV in the same vial. mRNA-1073, our COVID and flu combination vaccine is expected to enter the clinic this year.
We believe the ability to combine a number of vaccines for respiratory diseases into a single shot will provide substantial benefits and lower systemic cost of administration. Additionally, as part of our influenza vaccine development strategy, we are developing five different influenza vaccine. mRNA-1010, our flu vaccine candidate furthest along in the development, is expected to start a phase III study shortly. We believe that we can apply our mRNA platform to address the long-standing design and manufacturing challenges associated with developing seasonal influenza vaccines. We expect our platform flexibility in targeting multiple strains, coupled with our ability to manufacture quickly, will facilitate production of a vaccine that better matches the predominant circulating influenza strain each season. Many of the questions that we receive focus on Moderna long-term strategy and development for our platform and pipeline beyond COVID-19.
I would encourage you to read my letter to shareholders in the annual report and listen to our Vaccine Day presentation. As I noted in my letter to shareholders, with the experience of having developed our technology into an approved product and the ability to generate cash to invest to scale our platform, our focus for 2022 and beyond is on four strategic pillars for impact to patients. Priority number one, develop a pan-respiratory annual single dose booster vaccine to protect hundreds of millions of people against a range of respiratory disease. Priority number two, develop first-in-class vaccine against latent viruses that cause long-term damage that do not arise until decades after infection. There are many latent viruses that do not have any vaccine approved today. Priority number three, develop therapeutics or treatment based on mRNA encoded proteins.
As you know, we are working on treatments in oncology, in cardiology, in rare genetic diseases, and in autoimmune diseases. Priority number four, focusing on therapeutics based on mRNA encoded gene editing enzyme with a vision to be a leader in large complex genomic editing. As our product pipeline illustrates, we aim to deploy our mRNA technology to combat a broad number of diseases. We never set out to be a one drug company. We are a platform company. Success with our COVID-19 vaccine has and will continue to allow us to invest in R&D. We currently have 46 programs in development, up from 24 at this time last year at the shareholder meeting. Our development programs will present a diverse portfolio of both vaccines and therapeutics spanning seven modalities, including programs in oncology, cardiovascular disease, rare disease, and autoimmune disease.
We currently have ongoing phase III studies for RSV vaccine in older adults and for CMV vaccine. CMV is the leading cause of birth defects in the U.S. and in many countries around the world. There is no vaccine today approved against CMV. As mentioned earlier, we also expect to commence a phase III study for our flu vaccine in 2022. Additionally, we have recently announced our global public health strategy. We have committed to advance vaccine targeting 15 pathogens identified as the biggest global health risk by 2025. These have been identified by the WHO, CEPI, and other infectious disease organizations. We have also recently launched mRNA Access, a new collaborative allowing researchers around the world to utilize our mRNA platform to pursue research on emerging and neglected infectious disease.
The scientists now in Europe, U.S., Africa, or anywhere around the world can log in and design a vaccine that will be made at Moderna and shipped back to their lab for testing. Our clinical portfolio also includes programs to develop vaccines against HIV, the Nipah virus, and Zika. We believe that our success with the COVID-19 vaccine provides us with both financial resources and technical know-how to aggressively pursue these other programs, and we continue to invest in our pipeline.
We believe that over 10 years of experience in this field give us an advantage that cannot easily be replicated by others who may seek to enter the field of mRNA-based medicine. I encourage you to look at the product pipeline section of our investor relations website for more detailed overview of these programs. We received also a handful of questions asking for an update on our cancer vaccine specifically.
As followers of Moderna will know, we have three cancer vaccine programs. The personalized cancer vaccine, also called PCV, being conducted in collaboration with Merck, as well as a vaccine against new antigen related to a common oncogene called KRAS, and a new checkpoint vaccine candidate that we announced in February. This program continues to progress well, and we'll continue to provide updates as we have news to report. We have said previously that the personalized cancer vaccine phase II data could be available in Q4 this year, waiting for the clinical data as we speak. Lastly, a few investors asked questions related to our strategy for international expansion, including whether we have current plans to enter China. In 2021, we experienced exponential growth and more than doubled the size of our teams between the end of 2020 and 2021.
Now we have over 3,000 Moderna team members around the world. We have announced recently our plans to scale to 21 commercial subsidiaries around the world, including four new markets in Asia and six new markets in Europe this year. We remain focused on continuing to grow our global footprint in markets where it makes sense for us to do business at this time, and we'll continue to assess opportunity in all major markets. We believe China is an important market. Many shareholders asked questions related to our stock performance, extra explanation on the dynamics underlying our stock price. Our stock price has fluctuated over the past year, in many cases in reaction to news related to the pandemic, including statements by government officials, media reports, and other events.
Our stock price will likely continue to reflect dynamics related to the market for COVID-19 vaccine for the immediate foreseeable future. Looking forward, we are committed to taking those actions that we believe will create and build shareholder value over time, which will be reflected over time in our stock price. We will do this by building a foundation for the future success of Moderna. This is reflected in our capital allocation strategy. A handful of investors asked whether we plan to start paying dividends or to conduct a stock split. We do not plan at this time of doing either. We do have a very strong cash position, which we have invested and we continue to use to invest in R&D and scale the development of our pipeline manufacturing capabilities to maximize our impact in human health.
As we have noted previously on earnings calls and investor calls, our capital allocation strategy is as follows. Our priority number one is to reinvest in the business and accelerate investments in R&D, in manufacturing, and to build the company, including our pipeline, as I mentioned before. We have a unique platform, and we want to use the capital we have to make impactful medicine that will change the life of millions around the world. That is our priority number one. Our priority number two in capital allocation is to seek external investment opportunities such as licensing technology or merger and acquisition opportunities. Our goal here is to use outside technology to expand our platform and to expand our ability to impact and help patients. Our priority number four is to return capital to shareholders through share buyback.
As we've disclosed before, we've already completed the $1 billion buyback program announced in August 2021, and we've announced a new program to purchase up to $3 billion of shares. This plan does not have an expiration date and will provide updates on our quarterly calls. We believe that these priorities will best position us to continue to successfully grow Moderna and create long-term value for shareholders. I would like to invite our Chief Legal Officer, Shannon Klinger, to address a few questions related to legal matters.
Thank you, Stéphane. A few shareholders asked questions related to Moderna's intellectual property, including the status of our discussions with the NIH related to intellectual property of the COVID-19 vaccine. We have a productive and long history with NIH, and out of respect for our partnership with NIH, I will not comment other than to say that discussions around IP are ongoing, and we believe we are making good progress. We continue to collaborate with NIH across various different programs. There are a few questions around other IP-related litigation, and on those questions, I will not comment as those are ongoing legal matters. However, it's important to note that in the Arbutus litigation, they're not seeking an injunction, and we do not view that litigation as posing any threat of disruption to our business.
Finally, in response to a question about the strength of our patent protections against potential competitors entering the mRNA space, I note that we have a robust patent suite that covers the technology that we pioneered. Of course, there are other ways to create mRNA products that may fall outside our patents, but those other approaches may not prove to be as successful. With that, I'd like to hand the call back to Noubar to address a few additional questions related to executive compensation and the board.
Thank you, Shannon, and thank you, Stéphane. A few investors asked questions about our executive compensation policies. A key pillar of our compensation programs is to ensure that our executive team is aligned with investors. While we feel it is important to pay our team competitively to attract and retain the best talent possible, we believe in paying for performance, and so more of our compensation is weighted toward equity that vests over time. In 2021, we implemented performance stock units, or PSUs, into our executive compensation program, where payout is based upon achieving pipeline goals for development programs and awards vest only if pipeline goals are achieved. Our executives are also compensated with stock options and restricted stock units in order to provide our team with a strong incentive to pursue growth that would result in stock price appreciation over the long term.
In 2021, our CEO pay was only at the 34th percentile of companies in our peer group, while our total shareholder return outpaced peers at 143%. The board also received the vast majority of its compensation in equity rather than cash, promoting their alignment with investors as well. We also received several questions regarding gender and ethnic diversity on our board of directors and our management team. We've made significant strides in terms of gender diversity on the board in the last few years, but we recognize that there's more work that can be done to increase diverse representation on the board. While we do not have a firm timeline in place on our future recruitment efforts, as we consider future directors, director candidates, we will seek out candidates who can contribute to the diversity of views and perspectives of the board.
Among the Moderna management team, 39% of the leadership at the VP level and above is female. In terms of the Moderna workforce, more broadly, we are making strides there as well. 40% of our U.S. employees identified as racially or ethnically diverse as of the end of 2021, up from 35% the prior year. I'd like to invite Lavina Talukdar, Moderna's Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, to read some of the questions that have been submitted during the meeting that were not addressed by our earlier remarks.
Thank you, Noubar. We have one question that has come in during the meeting on a topic that has not been addressed by the questions submitted in advance. I will now read that question. Which steps will the Compensation and Talent Committee take in 2022 to meaningfully integrate access and vaccine equity into the LTI and remuneration policy? And how will the committee ensure that the perspectives and inputs from experts, shareholders, and stakeholders are taken into account in this process?
We have engaged with shareholders on this topic and understand the interest from shareholders and other stakeholders on this topic. For 2023, a part of our bonus program payout is tied to ensuring that we meet targets for making vaccines available to low and middle-income countries.
Thank you for that answer.
That will complete the question and answer period. Thank you all for attending, and thank you for your continued support.