Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, disputes the notion that the Pfizer contract is worse for taxpayers than the others. "The government, however, is giving away the store - meeting critical short-term goals but ignoring long-term serious costs." "The potential for a vaccine like this is nothing short of miraculous," Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, who focuses on the pharmaceutical industry and drug policy, wrote in an email to NPR. Pfizer didn't respond to repeated requests for comment for this story. It may also set a dangerous precedent for future government contracts, they say. It excludes almost all intellectual property rights, forgoing leverage to use if the company engages in price gouging down the road. Meanwhile, the Pfizer contract has the narrowest protections for taxpayers of any Operation Warp Speed contract released so far, drug policy and intellectual property experts tell NPR. Shots - Health News Pfizer Says Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine Is More Than 90% Effective The other Operation Warp Speed agreements pay for vaccines regardless of FDA approval or authorization. The government also has the option to buy up to 500 million more doses. That nearly $2 billion contract will pay for 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine at a price of $19.50 per dose if the vaccine is OK'd by the Food and Drug Administration. The company announced that it submitted its request for emergency use authorization on Friday. They announced results of final efficacy analysis last Wednesday, revealing that the vaccine is 95% effective. Pfizer is working on the vaccine with BioNTech, a German company. Although Pfizer didn't receive government funding this spring toward research and development of the vaccine, it nevertheless received one of the largest Operation Warp Speed supply contracts to date on July 21. The drugmaker has downplayed its involvement in Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's more than $10 billion program to make a coronavirus vaccine available in record time. When the Department of Health and Human Services released Pfizer's $1.95 billion coronavirus vaccine contract with Operation Warp Speed last Wednesday, the agreement revealed that the Trump administration didn't include government rights to intellectual property typically found in federal contracts. Refrigerators store Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at a company facility in Kalamazoo, Mich.
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