Vaccine, price … the Moderna laboratory soon forced to reveal everything?

Moderna may soon be forced to reveal everything about how it works. As revealed by the Financial Times, relayed by BFMTV, the sling smoldering against biotech in recent days has taken on a new dimension. The London-based asset manager and shareholder of the Laboratory, Legal & Investment Management (LGIM), is calling for more transparency from the company on “access to its products, such as pricing.” LGIM is particularly interested in determining the role played by US government grants in the development of its vaccine.

Indeed, as the British daily relates, Washington has allocated $ 2.5 billion to Moderna to develop its remedy against Covid-19. A grant that requires biotech to be more transparent, says LGIM, which wants to know where the Moderna vaccines have been sent. According to the asset manager, the treatment was mainly shipped to rich countries, without transferring its technology to manufacturers in poorer and less developed countries.

The invention of the vaccine in question

A reproach already made by NGOs around the world. Oxfam had already filed petitions with Moderna and Pfizer to share vaccine technology. The American Democratic senator from Massachusetts and former presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in 2020, Élizabeth Warren, made the same proposal last November.

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The invention of Moderna’s vaccine is also debated. According to the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) agency, it was developed with three of its scientists: Barney Graham, John Mascola, and Kizzmekia Corbett. The agency believes that the paternity of the patent for the vaccine should be shared, leading to the publication of its trade secrets. An assertion strongly denied by Moderna which also disputes all allegations of LGIM to the policeman of the New York Stock Exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Faced with these accusations, the laboratory asked the SEC to block the LGIM’s proposal while it must publish, by February 15, additional information on the pricing of its vaccine against Covid-19. The latter brought in nearly $ 18 billion to biotech this year.