NIH Refuses To Release Details Of COVID-19 Vaccine Royalty Agreement

Authorized by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. National Institutes of wellness (NIH) is refusing to release additional information about an agreement it reached over a COVID-19vaccine that has learned it at least $400 million.

Syringes of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines at a recruitment site in Los Angeles, on Feb. 16, 2021. (Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)

The NIH declined to supply any materials in consequence to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Epoch Times.

“The NIH withholds the entry of the records as they are protected from release,” Gorka Garcia-Malene, an NIH official, told The Epoch Times in a letter.

She citted an exercise outlined in the act that allows government agents to organization or full withhold information.

“In this case, exercise 3 incorporates 35 U.S.C. 209 (f), which reads in applicable part, ‘No national agency Shall grant any licence under a patent or patent application on a federally owned invention unless the individual requesting the licence has supported the agency with a plan for improvement or marketing of the invention, but that any specified plan will be treated by the national agency as commercial and financial information provided from individual and privacy and not subject to discretion under section 552 of title 5,’ Ms. Garcia-Malene gate.

“Exemption 4 protections from disclosure trade secrets and commercial or financial information that is privileged and trustial,“ she added.

In February 2023, Moderna announced that it had paid $400 million to the NIH and would make additional payments in the future as part of a licensing agreement for spice proteins utilized in the company’s COVID-19vaccine. The Epoch Times accessed a copy of the contract, which confirmed the payment but edited details of the future payments.

The Epoch Times then lodged a fresh request, looking more details about the future payments, which are said to be based on how many COVID-19 vehicles are sold.

Ms. Garcia-Malene was responding to the fresh request.

James Love, manager of the nonprofit cognition Ecology International, said the information should be made public.

“The NIH put out respective press statements about the royalty dispute with Moderna, and they should not now claim it is any secret assurance information. And erstwhile hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, the public interest in transparency is large too,’ Mr. Love told The Epoch Times in an email.

“There are quite a few NIH officials who resume transparency,” he added.

Inquires to NIH spokespersons received distant messages. Another request for comment, sent to 1 of the addresses provided in the distant messages, was not returned.

The Epoch Times plans to apply the NIH’s decision.

The NIH is 1 of respective government agents that receive royalty payments. Officials there have thought again attempts to get information on these payments, but in 2023, they disclosed any $325 million in royalties received between 2009 and 2020 after being successful.

Some experts say the payments, made to the agency and many of its top scientists, should be stopped.

“Neither the government nor any government employer should have any financial interest in a product for which the government has any investment in licensing or promoting,“ Aaron Siri, managing partner of Siri & Glimstad LLP, told The Epoch Times in an email. “It creates a dangerous conflict of interest.”

Move on BioNTech

The NIH is triing to get more money from COVID-19vaccine manufacturers, according to the fresh subsidiaries.

BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner, said in the forms that the NIH served it with a announcement of default due to the fact that the NIH’s position is that BioNTech owes it money from COVID-19vaccine sales.

BioNTech said it does not think itowes the NIH money but that “the eventual result of these matters is uncertain and we cannot warrant that our explanation of these licence agreements will prevail, or that we will not eventual request to pay any or all of the royalty and another related amounts in dispute.”

The NIH did not return inquires on the BioNTech subsidiaries.

The NIH has said previously it licensed its spike protein technology to BioNTech for the Pfizer-Biontech COVID-19 vaccine.

The Epoch Times has been subject to a Freedom of Information Act request for the announcement of default and related documents. Another request seeks information on how the NIH has threeed or served Pfizer with a akin notice.

However much money the U.S. government receives in royalties will be much little than it has paid for the vaccines. The government has purchased hundreds of millions of shots, spending north of $30 billion.