Posted on 03/27/2023 9:17:56 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The U.S. government has released the licensing agreement it hammered out with vaccine manufacturer Moderna but has refused to confirm many payment details.
Moderna agreed to pay the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to license spike protein technology the company included in its COVID-19 vaccine, the contract confirms.
Moderna resisted for years acknowledging the work by government researchers on the spike protein but relented in late 2021 and announced the contract during an earnings call on Feb. 23.
Moderna said it provided a “catch-up payment” of $400 million to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH, under the agreement.
The newly disclosed contract says that Moderna would pay the NIH a “noncreditable, nonrefundable royalty in the amount of Four Hundred Million dollars.”
Portions that would confirm Moderna’s statement that the company would pay “low single digit royalties” on future sales of its COVID-19 vaccines are redacted.
The contract, running 34 pages, has key sections redacted as to future royalties.
One section, for instance, says, “The licensee agrees to pay to the NIAID earned royalties on net sales … as follows.” But the rest of the section is redacted.
The Epoch Times obtained the contract through the Freedom of Information Act.
The NIH cited for the redactions an exemption to the act that enables agencies to withhold “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.”
“They redacted the royalties, even though there have been press releases about the royalties,” James Love, director of the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International, told The Epoch Times via email. “It’s common but [expletive] to redact royalties on a negotiated license on a government patent.”
Unredacted information in the contract confirmed that Moderna had agreed to pay the NIH royalties before the agreement took effect in late 2022: a “minimum annual royalty,” “earned royalties,” and “benchmark royalties.”
The contract was signed on Dec. 14, 2022, by Michael Mowatt, director of the Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Office at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Shannon Klinger, chief legal officer at Moderna.
The payments would include a royalty within 60 days after government officials provided a “reasonable detailed written statement and request” for an amount “equivalent to a pro rata share of the unreimbursed patent expenses previously paid by the NIAID.”
Moderna has made nearly $37 billion from its COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. It has forecast $5 billion in revenue from the vaccines in 2023. Moderna and Pfizer both received enormous government contracts for their vaccines, which helped in development and manufacturing.
The NIH shares ownership of the spike protein technology that Moderna utilized with researchers at Scripps Research Institute and Dartmouth University’s Geisel School of Medicine. Both are named as partners in the contract.
While it’s unclear from the contract what specific revenue the partners will receive from Moderna, Dartmouth said previously it would make money through the agreement.
Read more here...
Is this related to the recent news story about the Biden Administration protecting Moderna in a Covid vaccine patent infringement lawsuit by two companies?
BTTT.
That’s how it should work.
And Covid was a massively profitable "event" for the few and burden for the many. A reminder, the mortality rate worldwide over a full three years does not rise to more than 1/10th of one percent. Scare the public into compliance and support for more government. That's been the game.
Really? What exactly was the taxpayer investment here and what should the return be?
A fair and fine question.
"All in all, U.S. agencies committed about $2.5 billion to help develop Moderna’s vaccine and buy doses, according to the New York Times. "
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/24/fact-check-donations-research-grants-helped-fund-moderna-vaccine/6398486002/
What should a return on that be? Well, ask yourself what you expect when you invest a dollar. To get back a small portion of that dollar, or more than a dollar? I wager you are not an enthusiast for losing your own money.
The US got hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine for that money. It was largely a purchase agreement.
We were talking about the return on the NIH funding for research.
We were not. You were. If one were to go back in time to all the US government money -- not just the NIH -- funding which has inured to the benefit of the few, it would be an even larger picture of loss for the many and benefit of the few.
A choice tidbit in the article is worth repeating: "The NIH cited for the redactions an exemption to the act that enables agencies to withhold 'trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential'.”
Yup, that's freedom of information about public monies. Confidentially speaking. Now how does one calculate a return on investment from information redacted? Privileged? Secret?
You made the claim that our return wasn't fair so I assumed you had some way to back that statement up.
What was redacted is the future payments Moderna may make to the government. Those can only increase the return to the taxpayers.
You wrote of $400 million, "...this is the payoff for the taxpayers." That was your claim, and also not backed up.
If one argues that the Moderna mRNA product was and remains "safe and effective," then your claim gains weight. If one argues the Moderna mRNA product was and remains NOT "safe and effective," then my claim gains weight.
I claim at the root that the mRNA product is neither "safe" nor "effective" -- given the publicly documented infections as even Fauci and others have "claimed" -- so any argument about return on an investment becomes rather moot.
The cited $2.5 billion is greater than the cited $400 million by a factor of more than six JUST TO BREAK EVEN as an "investment." Adding in the claim of "safe and effective" versus neither safe nor effective suggests this discussion is about far more than just a "return to the taxpayers."
It was in the article.
The US received $400M in royalty payments for technology that was partially developed with taxpayer funds. What part of that is unclear?
If one argues that the Moderna mRNA product was and remains "safe and effective," then your claim gains weight. If one argues the Moderna mRNA product was and remains NOT "safe and effective," then my claim gains weight.
The effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine is irrelevant - Moderna paid us for the use of the technology and that payment was the return to the taxpayers. The royalty payment was for technology funded by the taxpayers and it doesn't really matter what Moderna used it for.
I claim at the root that the mRNA product is neither "safe" nor "effective" -- given the publicly documented infections as even Fauci and others have "claimed" -- so any argument about return on an investment becomes rather moot.
So why did you make one?
The cited $2.5 billion is greater than the cited $400 million by a factor of more than six JUST TO BREAK EVEN as an "investment."
You're conflating things. The article is about royalties as a result of NIH funding some research.
You claimed we didn't get a fair return on this investment.
You then brought up money that the government paid to purchase hundreds of millions of doses of the Moderna vaccine. You may think the government made a bad deal but it was a purchase of goods, not an investment.
Moderna delivered the vaccine doses we purchased so the deal was satisfied.
So the public investment in and return on a public investment which may not be safe or effective is irrelevant?
Hmm. And yet, only this last week, "Biden's DOJ is quietly trying to orchestrate taxpayer-funded bailout of Moderna."
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-doj-quietly-trying-orchestrate-taxpayer-funded-bailout-moderna
You argue "Moderna paid us for the use of the technology and that payment was the return to the taxpayers." And now a taxpayer-funded bailout of Moderna can also be argued as "return to the taxpayer."
You've wandered into the rhetorical weeds on this one.
Here's some more "return to the taxpayer."
Moderna has argued that the federal government should be on the hook for any legal settlement because of a stipulation in its contract that protects the company from patent litigation. The government had stayed silent on the matter until last month, when Justice Department lawyers said that any liability that Moderna faces should 'transfer' to the United States government, citing a World War I-era law that protects federal contractors from patent disputes."
Source: https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/the-biden-administrations-strang-secret-effort-to-bail-out-moderna/
And as to the amount of money, "The pharmaceutical company Moderna, which has already received over $10 billion in taxpayer funds...."
Source: https://tennesseestar.com/economy/biden-administration-attempting-to-bail-out-moderna/admin/2023/03/23/
How does one calculate "return to the taxpayer?"
Especially if "the effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine is irrelevant?"
You tell us. You assured us the return we received wasn't fair.
How did you calculate it?
Clever rhetorical parry. I will tell you that -- according to the sources which tally as much as $10 billion in support to Moderna -- $400 million is a pittance. Using those two figures only, it is a very "fair" 1/25th of the "investment" -- a principal amount if one is speaking about starting deposit into an investment. That is not any "return" on an investment, but a loss of any actual "return" in a financial sense.
$400,000,000 / $10,000,000,000 = 0.04, or four percent if expressed as a percentage of the principal amount. Said in plain words, NO return on an investment, and not even a significant repayment of the principal.
The loss will magnify if the Biden bailout of Moderna is done. There has been no actual fiduciary "return."
Now you calculate your version of "fair." We can compare our points-of-view in numbers, and not rhetoric.
After all, you did write, "the research produced some useful technology and this is the payoff for the taxpayers. That's how it should work." Now show your math to bolster your claim that "this is the payoff."
You've been told twice now that we've received hundreds of millions of doses of Moderna's vaccine for that money yet you leave that totally out of the equation.
Why?
Because 1) the mRNA products are neither "safe" nor "effective," and 2) many dignitaries among the Biden regime past and present have become infected with Covid after administration of this "prevention" product, and 3) lastly Biden and Moderna are arguing for yet more money.
If you'd care to document your most general "hundreds of millions of doses" into a number that can be figured against a number like $10 billion, we could evaluate with some simple math.
Please document your "hundreds of millions."
Additionally, consider that among those doses, one reads "More Than 82 Million COVID Vaccine Doses Wasted in U.S.: Report."
Source: https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20220607/millions-covid-vaccine-doses-wasted-us-report
Please cite your sources, and show your arithmetic to assert your claim. I have.
I'm going to stick to the topic of the thread, which is the royalties the government is getting from Moderna for tech developed under NIH funding.
If you're genuinely interested in the purchase agreements we've made for the vaccines it's trivially easy to find out about them online.
They're different topics but you don't seem to want to talk about the one in the article.
Title of the article: "Contract Confirms US Government Received $400 Million From Major COVID-19 Vaccine Manufacturer Moderna."
Government received $400 million from Moderna on an "investment" of billions. Not much of a return.
Dwarfing the few billions mentioned so far, one reads "Bombshell Vax Analysis Finds $147 Billion In Economic Damage, Tens Of Millions Injured Or Disabled.<.B>"
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bombshell-vax-analysis-finds-147-billion-economic-damage-tens-millions-injured-or-disabled
Of course,as this isn't the topic.... We're talking about $400 million "interest" back on $2.5 billion of "principal." By all means, confine the discussion. Assert without sources. Hide the basic arithmetic. It's safe and effective, so has it been said.
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