And when the dollar numbers are this big, I think people legitimately want to ask whether the government's protected their interests sufficiently." "This is not paying somebody to run down to Safeway to buy coffee for the office," Love says. If Pfizer's vaccine does not receive FDA approval or authorization, the USG does not pay."Īlthough Pfizer's Operation Warp Speed participation is different from that of the other companies in the vaccine race in that respect, treating its deal as a simple government purchase doesn't make sense, says James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit public interest group focused on intellectual property. government did not fund and is not funding any of Pfizer's or BioNTech's R&D used to create the intellectual property for their mRNA vaccine. This contract is not for research and development (R&D), but for Pfizer to produce and distribute 100 million doses of an FDA approved or authorized vaccine. government does not fund creation of any of the intellectual property, as is the case in our agreement with Pfizer, the government is not entitled to any rights to a company's intellectual property."īaldassarre elaborated in an email to NPR: "This production contract was aggressively negotiated on behalf of the American public and is a fair deal. Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, disputes the notion that the Pfizer contract is worse for taxpayers than the others. "The government, however, is giving away the store - meeting critical short-term goals but ignoring long-term serious costs." "The potential for a vaccine like this is nothing short of miraculous," Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, who focuses on the pharmaceutical industry and drug policy, wrote in an email to NPR. Pfizer didn't respond to repeated requests for comment for this story. It may also set a dangerous precedent for future government contracts, they say. It excludes almost all intellectual property rights, forgoing leverage to use if the company engages in price gouging down the road. Meanwhile, the Pfizer contract has the narrowest protections for taxpayers of any Operation Warp Speed contract released so far, drug policy and intellectual property experts tell NPR. The other Operation Warp Speed agreements pay for vaccines regardless of FDA approval or authorization. The government also has the option to buy up to 500 million more doses. That nearly $2 billion contract will pay for 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine at a price of $19.50 per dose if the vaccine is OK'd by the Food and Drug Administration.
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