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But administration officials privately believe the reluctance is also partly due to financial concerns: If Moderna agreed to sell the Biden administration doses to poorer countries, he would likely be asked to do so. at cost, a source said, putting pressure on its results.
The company’s stance infuriated senior health officials at Biden, who lobbied Moderna executives in recent meetings that one person described as “very intense.” Deliberations between the federal government and Moderna could undermine the Biden administration’s efforts to ship more doses overseas as it begins rolling out booster shots to Americans.
“We need them to mobilize in the short term and dramatically increase the number of doses they deliver to low- and middle-income countries,” said a senior administration official.
The White House declined to comment on the matter. Moderna has yet to respond to a request for comment on the allegations regarding his financial motives.
But amid the continuing tension, the company announced Thursday morning that it would build a vaccine production center in Africa to produce up to 500 million doses each year. However, he did not choose a site or set a timetable for the opening of the installation.
“While we are still working to increase the capacity of our current network to deliver vaccines for the ongoing pandemic in 2022, we believe it is important to invest in the future,” said Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, in a press release.
The Biden administration’s tense discussions with Moderna contrast sharply with its relationship with Pfizer and BioNTech. The partners refused government help to develop their Covid-19 vaccine but worked with the administration to increase global vaccination. In September, the two companies signed an agreement with the federal government to deliver 1 billion doses of their vaccine for an international donation by the end of September 2022.
The White House announced in August that it would begin the process of distributing boosters to most adults in a matter of weeks, drawing criticism from top federal scientists and outside health experts. They argued that the United States should instead focus on increasing domestic primary vaccinations and donations around the world.
Since then, the Biden administration has tried to work with Moderna to find new ways to increase the doses available for donation.
“This is something the administration has been trying to get Moderna to commit to for a long time,” said one of those with first-hand knowledge of the situation. “It was difficult.”
Moderna said on Thursday that building its planned vaccination center would cost up to $ 500 million, and that it could potentially produce vaccines for other diseases using the same mRNA technology that underpins its vaccine. Covid-19.
But outside experts believe building a facility from scratch, hiring and training staff could take years. And this decision is unlikely to satisfy a White House that set itself just a few weeks ago the goal of ending the pandemic by next September.
“We want them to increase the doses which can go very short term,” said the senior administration official. The billions of taxpayer dollars invested in developing the vaccine only compounded the frustration among U.S. officials at the company’s reluctance to further aid the president’s international efforts.
“The US government co-invented the vaccine. We spent over $ 8 billion,” the official said.
In the meantime, Moderna is also facing – and resisting – growing pressure from activists and international organizations to share its vaccine formula with manufacturers in other countries.
The Biden administration earlier this year officially supported the lifting of patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines in order to expand production globally. But this proposal is fiercely opposed by both drug manufacturers and some European countries.
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