Die Welt reported that the German government was making counterbids to the company to persuade it to stay. German lawmakers began to issue statements on Sunday.
“The exclusive sale of a possible vaccine to the USA must be prevented by all means,” Karl Lauterbach, a German lawmaker who is also a professor of epidemiology, said on Twitter. “Capitalism has limits.”
Adding to the dismay in Germany was the fact that CureVac works closely with a taxpayer-funded government research organization, the Paul Ehrlich Institute for vaccines and biomedicines.
Peter Altmaier, Germany’s economy minister, praised the company for not being tempted by any American offer. “It was a great decision,” he said in a television talk show on Sunday night. “Germany is not for sale.”
Mr. Altmaier said the government would “make sure that the necessary help is available” to the company in developing the vaccine. And he warned that if any hostile offer was attempted, Germany would step in.
“When it’s about important infrastructure and national and European interest,” he said, “we will also act if we have to.”
CureVac’s main investor ruled out giving exclusive access to a future vaccine to one country.
“We want to develop a vaccine for the whole world, and not for individual states,” Christof Hettich, chief executive of Dievini Hopp Biotech Holding, told the newspaper Mannheimer Morgen.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/world/europe/cornonavirus-vaccine-us-germany.html
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