FDA approves Novavax COVID-19 shot but with unusual restrictions

[BumRushDaShow]

16. Since Fauci was involved with Moderna

well you know what the thinking probably was with that back during the first term.

But Novavax had 45's special attention because they were snuck in and their contract award concealed until suddenly discovered -

Novavax Posts Coronavirus Vaccine Contract That Government Didn't Disclose


November 11, 2020 1:10 PM ET
By Sydney Lupkin


(snip)

Novavax released its federal contract in a quarterly financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. HHS has yet to release this contract. "We shouldn't have to be getting the details in these contracts through the companies and their SEC filings," says Ameet Sarpatwari, assistant director of Harvard Medical School's Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law. "They should be publicly available, and there should be input even prior to the execution of the contracts."

The Novavax contract is one of several Operation Warp Speed contracts that were issued through a third party, Advanced Technology International, a fact that NPR first revealed in September. This arrangement concerned members of Congress and advocacy groups who feared the nontraditional agreements would omit the safeguards that often come with taxpayer funding, like protections against potential future price-gouging.

Novavax's contract appears to include the kind of "march-in" rights found in a typical government contract, which allow the government to take over a drug or vaccine if the manufacturer that received federal funding can't or won't make its product or sets an unreasonable price.

"The patent rights clauses tend to be more favorable than the other contracts we're looking at in terms of the public's rights," says James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit public interest group focused on intellectual property. The contract's data rights — which typically govern disclosure and sharing of key studies, cell lines and the know-how for making a product — are also weaker than they would be under standard federal contracting laws.

(snip)

So they played the "long game" and apparently "pre-lined" the pockets.