Who Owns the Vaccine? A Conversation With Moderna’s Stéphane Bancel and Dr. Nahid Bhadelia

The roadblocks to getting the Covid-19 vaccine into poorer countries partially come down to a contentious patent dispute.

On Tuesday the New York Times dropped a bombshell report about patents around Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. After a four-year partnership with the US National Institutes of Health, Moderna filed for a patent on arguably the most critical component of its vaccine, and it did so including only the names of its own scientists. Much to the consternation of the NIH, all of its scientists were excluded from the patent filing, which could have major ramifications. If the government agency had been included in the filing, then theoretically the US would be able to license out the technology, which would help get it out faster and wider, including into more developing countries where vaccination rates remain low. If the patent is approved as written, this would give Moderna sole control over this technology—and potentially tens of billions more in profits. Many in the scientific community view the move by Moderna as a betrayal.

Today at RE:WIRED, our own senior writer Maryn McKenna sat down with Moderna’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, along with Nahid Bhadelia, an internationally regarded infectious-disease physician. Bhadelia is the founding director of Boston University’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research, as well as the associate director of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, a maximum containment research facility at BU.

Bancel said he couldn’t say much about the specific patent case because it’s an open legal matter, but he noted that simply making the recipe available would not instantly lead to there being enough vaccines. “There are not factories around the world waiting to make this product,” Bancel said, “because these factories don’t exist. It’s an entirely new type of product.”