CureVac boss was at the White House last week to discuss its vaccines plans.
The Donald Trump administration offered “large sums of money” to get exclusive access to a coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German company, Die Welt reported Sunday.
According to the article, Trump was trying to get the Tübingen-based CureVac company — which also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston — to move its research wing to the United States and develop the vaccine “for the U.S. only.”
A spokesperson for Germany’s Health Ministry quoted in the article appeared to acknowledge the U.S. approach and said that Berlin was “very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.”
On Sunday afternoon, Germany’s Health Ministry told Reuters that its spokesperson had been quoted correctly in the newspaper article, confirming that Washington had attempted to take over the biopharmaceutical company. Government sources indicated that Berlin was now offering CureVac financial incentives to remain in Germany.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said at a press conference Sunday that he had heard about the CureVac reports and that it would be discussed at a crisis team meeting Monday.
