CureVac’s person in charge was at the White House last week to discuss its vaccine plans.
UNITED STATES (Politico) – The Donald Trump administration offered “large sums of money” to get exclusive access to a coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German company, Die Welt, reported.
According to the article, Trump was trying to get the Tübingen-based CureVac company — which also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston — to move its research wing to the United States and develop the vaccine “for the U.S. only.”
A spokesperson for Germany’s Health Ministry quoted in the article acknowledge the U.S. approach and said that Berlin was “very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.”
Germany’s Health Ministry told Reuters that Washington had attempted to take over the biopharmaceutical company. Government sources indicated that Berlin was now offering CureVac financial incentives to remain in Germany.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said at a press conference Sunday that he had heard about the CureVac reports and that it would be discussed at a crisis team meeting today on Monday march 17 2020.
Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, said on Twitter that the Welt report was “wrong.”
https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1239248345329274881
Last week CureVac CEO Daniel Menichella was among the pharmaceutical representatives invited to the White House to discuss coronavirus vaccine development with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and members of the president’s Coronavirus Task Force.
In a press release, the company said that Menichella had told U.S. officials about the vaccines it had in development, and revealed its hope to have an experimental vaccine ready by early summer.
The Yucatan Times
Newsroom
