Bicameral Members Call for Vaccine Funding Transparency

***Press Release***

Bicameral Members Call for Vaccine Funding Transparency

Washington, D.C.– This morning, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chair, led 50 bicameral Members of Congress in a request to HHS Secretary Becerra and Defense Secretary Austin for the unredacted COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic contracts. Representative Doggett was joined in this request by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and dozens of House colleagues. For months, Members have sought transparency regarding over $20 billion of taxpayer money spent on the research and development, manufacturing, and procurement of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. The former Trump Administration gave Big Pharma these billions in secret agreements, with the full terms of these deals still undisclosed.

Today's request mirrors information required under the Taxpayer Research and Coronavirus Knowledge Act (TRACK Act), legislation authored by Representative Doggett and companion legislation sponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Mike Braun (R-IN).

"While pleased with vaccine advances, taxpayers who financed development deserve full disclosure of the same type of information a private investor would demand," said Congressman Doggett. "In so many ways, the vaccines are our shot—our shot to contain the virus and our shot, developed and manufactured with at least $19 billion taxpayer dollars and over $2 billion more for therapeutics. As the angel investors in these drugs, taxpayers should know how their funds were spent and what secret deals were reached. The delayed and heavily-redacted agreements already released offer an incomplete picture—missing critical information regarding intellectual property protections, delivery schedules, and future pricing arrangements. An immediate concern is the prices manufacturers may charge for any booster shots or seasonal immunizations."

The TRACK Act would require a single database of federal biomedical investment information for COVID-19, including:

• Recipients, amounts, timeline, and expenditure breakdown, including prior and ongoing funding commitments for research, development, and manufacturing
• Non-financial support, including use of government facilities, equipment, and personnel
• Associated patents and patent applications, including any federal ownership
• Associated clinical trial data
• Full terms of the agreements made between the federal government and a manufacturer

TRACK Act Endorsements: Public Citizen, Patients for Affordable Drugs, Families USA, Niskanen Center, Indivisible, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Center for Medicare Advocacy, American Federation of Teachers, Project on Government Oversight, MomsRising, Lower Drug Prices Now, Social Security Works, National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), and Right to Health Action.

You can read the Members' letter here and below:

Dear Secretary Becerra and Secretary Austin,

The Trump Administration remained nonresponsive to Congressional requests to review the unredacted contracts negotiated for COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. When limited contract information has been belatedly released, key provisions concerning pricing terms, required deliverables and timelines, termination clauses, and patent right information has been redacted. We write to request that you release unredacted copies of all agreements regarding all of these and any other medical countermeasures entered into by the United States, or its subcontractors. Taxpayers are serving as the angel investors in COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development, assuming the costs and risk. It is imperative that they also receive a stake in the outcome as well as complete transparency on how billions of tax dollars have been spent and what terms were agreed to and may still be renegotiated. This information has become all the more important as manufacturers talk of boosters and seasonal immunizations, while considering "post-pandemic" price increases.

On March 11^th, Pfizer Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio noted at the Barclays Global Healthcare Conference that Pfizer sees "a significant opportunity…from a pricing perspective" to increase prices should COVID-19 become endemic, as many scientists predict. Similarly, Moderna President Stephen Hoge told the same conference "Post-pandemic, as we get into those what I will call seasonal epidemics that you would expect to happen with a SARS-CoV-2 virus, we would expect more normal pricing based on value." Johnson & Johnson Executive Vice President Joseph Wolk told the Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference they expect "pricing that's much more in line with a commercial opportunity."

Despite taxpayers fully underwriting Moderna's vaccine, significantly paying for Johnson & Johnson's research, and conducting some of the underlying research that contributed to Pfizer vaccines, all three companies are apparently planning to raise prices as quickly as possible. In our exercise of congressional oversight, we seek access to these agreements to understand what protections are in place for taxpayer investments and what terms may need to be renegotiated.

During a September 16^th press briefing, retired Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski, former Director of Supply, Production, and Distribution for Operation Warp Speed, asserted these secret contracts "entail information that allows us to all know that we paid a fair and reasonable price for each one of these vaccines as we went forward." To assure this commitment is being met, we respectfully request that you provide the following information:

1. Unredacted copies of all contracts, cooperative research and development agreements, grants, funding agreements, procurement agreements, manufacturing agreements, licensing arrangements, other transactions, and any other arrangements entered into by the United States or any subcontractor, including Advanced Technologies International, Inc. (ATI), related to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and any other medical countermeasures.
2. Patents and patent applications for a COVID-19 vaccine, therapeutic, or other medical countermeasure with U.S. government coinventors, or on which there is disclosure of U.S. government interest. Please include the numbers and expiration dates of such patents and the numbers and filing dates of such patent applications.
3. Any guidance, memos, email communications, written communications, transcripts, or other documentation regarding how federal investments shall be taken into consideration in making pricing determinations in funding and procurement agreements.
4. The estimated cost to produce a dose of each COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic candidate receiving federal research, development, or manufacturing support, and itemized breakdowns of the amounts of funding each manufacturer has asserted they have invested in the research, development, and manufacturing. Please include any steps you have taken, or plan to take, to verify the amounts each company has asserted they invested.
5. Any compensation, including royalty fees, each COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic candidate is receiving from the U.S. government for the licensing and production of their product.
6. Any compensation subcontractors of the United States, including ATI, are receiving for administrative and management work related to COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development, manufacturing, and distribution. Please include any bonuses or other compensation any subcontractors may receive upon FDA emergency use authorization or approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, therapeutic, or other medical countermeasure as well as any royalty or licensing fees, or other monetary or non-monetary stake in any of these products.

In the event that you believe that any contractual provision restricts your ability to publicly disclose any of the information requested, please identify the specific applicable language. Further, for any information that you may contend is not subject to public disclosure, please provide it under appropriate seal for our Congressional oversight review.

We appreciate your immediate attention to these important questions to provide full transparency on how taxpayer dollars have been spent.

Sincerely,

Lloyd Doggett

Jan Schakowsky

Bernard Sanders

Elizabeth Warren

Donald S. Beyer Jr.

Cori Bush

Matt Cartwright

Judy Chu

Emanuel Cleaver, II

Steve Cohen

Peter A. DeFazio

Rosa DeLauro

Mark DeSaulnier

Theodore E. Deutch

Veronica Escobar

Adriano Espaillat

Dwight Evans

John Garamendi

Jesús G. "Chuy" García

Sheila Jackson Lee

Pramila Jayapal

Marcy Kaptur

Ro Khanna

Raja Krishnamoorthi

Barbara Lee

Andy Levin

Alan Lowenthal

Carolyn B. Maloney

A. Donald McEachin

Jerry McNerney

Gwen Moore

Jerrold Nadler

Joe Neguse

Marie Newman

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Chellie Pingree

Mark Pocan

Katie Porter

Ayanna Pressley

Jamie Raskin

Brad Sherman

Mark Takano

Bennie G. Thompson

Dina Titus

Rashida Tlaib

Paul Tonko

Juan Vargas

Maxine Waters

Peter Welch

John Yarmuth

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