Coronavirus: anger in Germany at
report Trump seeking exclusive vaccine deal
MPs and ministers criticise display
of ‘self-interest’ and accuse US president of electioneering
Staff
and agencies
Germany’s health minister said
the idea of the US securing exclusive rights to a German-made coronavirus
vaccine was ‘off the table’. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
German ministers have reacted angrily
following reports US president Donald Trump offered a German medical company “large sums of
money” for exclusive rights to a Covid-19 vaccine.
“Germany is not for sale,” economy
minister Peter Altmaier told broadcaster ARD, reacting to a front page report
in Welt am Sonntag newspaper headlined “Trump vs Berlin”.
The newspaper reported Trump offered
$1bn to Tübingen-based biopharmaceutical company CureVac to secure the vaccine
“only for the United States”.
The German government was reportedly
offering its own financial incentives for the vaccine to stay in the country.
The report prompted fury in Berlin.
“German researchers are taking a leading role in developing medication and
vaccines as part of global cooperation networks,” foreign minister Heiko Maas
told the Funke Mediengruppe research network. “We cannot allow a situation
where others want to exclusively acquire the results of their research,” said
Maas, of the centre-left SPD.
“International co-operation is
important now, not national self-interest,” said Erwin Rüddel, a conservative
lawmaker on the German parliament’s health committee.
Christian Lindner, leader of the
liberal FDP party, accused Trump of electioneering, saying: “Obviously Trump
will use any means available in an election campaign.”
The German health minister, Jens
Spahn, said a takeover of CureVac by the Trump administration was “off the
table”. CureVac would only develop vaccine “for the whole world”, Spahn said,
“not for individual countries”.
Worldwide infections have grown to
more than more than 86,000, according to the Johns Hopkins university tracker, while cases inside China stood at 80,860 as of
Monday. Deaths outside China have risen to
more than 3,241, while
deaths in mainland China stand at 3,208 as of Monday.
At a news conference on Sunday,
interior minister Horst Seehofer was asked to confirm the attempts to court the
German company. “I can only say that I have heard several times today from
government officials today that this is the case, and we will be discussing it
in the crisis committee tomorrow,” he said.
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A US official told AFP on Sunday that
the report was “wildly overplayed”. “The US government has spoken with many
[more than 25] companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these
companies already received seed funding from US investors.”
The official also denied the US was
seeking to keep any potential vaccine for itself. “We will continue to talk to
any company that claims to be able to help. And any solution found would be
shared with the world,” the official said.
CureVac, founded in 2000, is based in
the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and has other sites in Frankfurt and
Boston.
The firm markets itself as
specialising in “development of treatments against cancer, antibody-based
therapies, treatment of rare illnesses and prophylactic vaccines”.
The lab is working in tandem with the
Paul-Ehrlich Institute, linked to the German health ministry.
Last week, the firm mysteriously
announced that CureVac CEO Daniel Menichella had been replaced by Ingmar Hoerr,
just weeks after Menichella met Trump, his vice-president Mike Pence and
representatives of pharma companies in Washington.
CureVac quoted Menichella on its
website as saying shortly after the visit: “We are very confident that we will
be able to develop a potent vaccine candidate within a few months.”
On Sunday, CureVac investors said
they would not sell the vaccine to a single state.
“If we are successful in developing
an effective vaccine, then it should help and protect people across the world,”
said Dietmar Hopp, head of principle investor dievini Hopp BioTech holding, in
a statement.
Altmaier welcomed the statement,
saying it was a “fantastic decision”.
He also pointed out the government
had the power to scrutinise foreign takeovers, saying: “Where important infrastructure
and national and European interests are concerned, we will take action if we
have to.”
Additional reporting by
Philip Oltermann in Berlin
/https://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2021/09/25/huawei-executive-meng-wanzhou-receives-warm-welcome-upon-return-to-china/_1_meng_wanzhou_2.jpg)
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