14 ms·

Germany tries to stop U.S. from luring away firm seeking coronavirus vaccine

309 points by nocturnial 7y ago

blattimwind 7y ago
Coincidentally, CureVac's board of directors replaced its American CEO with one of the German founders yesterday.
- madez 7y ago
  That didn't happen yesterday. "On March 2, CureVac's then-CEO Daniel Menichella attended a meeting at the White House to discuss coronavirus vaccine development with Trump and members of his coronavirus taskforce. On March 11, the company announced Menichella would be replaced by company founder Ingmar Hoerr, without giving a reason why." Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-us-wrestle-over-coronavirus-vaccine/a-52777990 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-us-wrestle-over-coronaviru...
- dharma1 7y ago
  from the founder: https://endpts.com/curevacs-ingmar-hoerr-tells-us-why-he-returned-to-take-on-a-pandemic-ngm-loses-a-president/ https://endpts.com/curevacs-ingmar-hoerr-tells-us-why-he-ret...
roywiggins 7y ago
The best chance we have against this thing is international cooperation. This doesn't bode well, if the US government thinks it can spend its way into getting the vaccine before everyone else. "Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."" https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to-stop-us-luring-away-firm-seeking-vaccine.html?__twitter_impression=true https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...
- mushufasa 7y ago
  To anyone either naive or cynical about global governance and wondering why we don't all cooperate, I recommend this book: "Governing the World: The History of an Idea, 1815 to Present" by Mark Mazower https://books.google.com/books/about/Governing_the_World.html?id=6-GAmwEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/Governing_the_World.htm... These behaviors are not new. The attitude the current American administration has towards the idea of global governance is an old attitude, and will prevent cooperation. This will not be the last time you see something similar in the news, and there will be no change unless the administration fundamentally changes its beliefs (read: the administration changes).
- theferalrobot 7y ago
  Yeah and if you actually read the Reuters report it says the exact opposite of this business insider drivel. > The U.S. 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 U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-usa/germany-tries-to-stop-u-s-from-luring-away-firm-seeking-coronavirus-vaccine-idUSKBN2120IV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    Just because those companies say that doesn't mean the Trump administration doesn't think it can buy an exclusive cure for itself. That they can't doesn't matter as much as they appear to be trying. The Welt am Sonntag report says "US-Präsident Donald Trump versucht offenbar, deutsche Wissenschaftler, die an einem potenziellen Corona-Impfstoff arbeiten, mit hohen finanziellen Zuwendungen nach Amerika zu locken beziehungsweise das Medikament exklusiv für sein Land zu sichern." which Google Translate assures me means "US President Donald Trump apparently tries to lure German scientists working on a potential corona vaccine to America with high financial donations or to secure the drug exclusively for his country." And the German health ministry confirmed the Welt story to Reuters. https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article206555143/Corona-USA-will-Zugriff-auf-deutsche-Impfstoff-Firma.html https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article206555143/Corona-USA-w...
lordnacho 7y ago
Why would the company need to exclusively sell to the US? Is the supply expected to be limited? Once the drug is discovered, can't it be licensed around the world for mass production?
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  1 week delay can mean 1 million deaths
  - MegaButts 7y ago
    Please share your data and calculations for this claim. I understand how exponential growth works, and I realize there is an incubation period, but this really just feels like unnecessary fear mongering considering we're at less than 6000 deaths worldwide as of now. https://talksub.com/covid19 https://talksub.com/covid19
    - Certhas 7y ago
      I agree it's hyperbolic, but the numbers are staggering and quoting the current deaths are really misleading in this respect. This will affect small percentages of everyone. A million deaths world wide, with a disease that is expected to reach 60+% of the population is not much. It's the difference in the death rate of 0.02%. In other words, if a sufficiently early intervention manages to reduce the death rate from 1% to 0.98%, that's a million lifes saved. However, the sensitive dependence on initial conditions only applies to things that happen during exponential growth. By the time a vaccine hits (according to many reputable sources about a year from now) we will be in a very different stage of the disease anyway.
    - gameswithgo 7y ago
      So you expect some mechanism to prevent the exponential growth then? Which?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    The earliest a vaccine will come is a year from now. The good majority of deaths will happen before then. So a one week delay won't be that costly.
StavrosK 7y ago
> Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.” At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's goal was to get everyone to dislike the US, out of some misguided sense that "if you're good, everyone hates you, therefore if you make everyone hate you that means you're good". Is he seriously trying to profiteer off the pandemic?
- xbmcuser 7y ago
  Probably he sees this as a way to win the election not about selling it for more money. He gets the vaccine and then trumps to his base that how americans only have the vaccine because america is so great etc and he got the vaccine for them.
  - onyva 7y ago
    USA is so far behind China and Europe in so many ways, I don’t think these type of dirty games are gonna make Americans feel better about themselves. It’s a dying society and it shows.
insulanian 7y ago
> Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.” Why?
- flohofwoe 7y ago
  "America First". That's why :/
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  Politics. He would love to present this talking point among all his other ones, such as Google having 1,700 engineers working on a website.
  - thomasz 7y ago
    No, that is not normal politics. It’s sociopathic and it’s self defeating.
- jszymborski 7y ago
  "America First" is the administrations primary guiding principle. There will be production shortages/delays. This would mean Americans would get vaccines first.
  - klipt 7y ago
    We have production capacity to make flu vaccines for everyone, I don't think capacity is an issue, the issue is more a proven safe vaccine doesn't exist yet.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > "America First" is the administrations primary guiding principle. No, kleptocracy is the administatin’s primary guiding principle. “America First” is one of the main propaganda tactics they use to sell their kleptocracy to the masses, not a guiding principle.
Scipio_Afri 7y ago
Why are we doing this, especially to our allies? If it was a Chinese company even then with their history it might feel justified but then why piss off any country that might have a fix to something hurting you economically. Surely we can’t be that short sighted. This sounds like another attempt for Trump to claim he’s a hero in a situation after totally fucking it up initially. I say this as an American who didn’t vote for him and saw him for what he was and is, he’s a bigger asshole than I had ever imagined and I’m sorry.
- rriepe 7y ago
  We're not. It's the same article about Trump that has come out every weekend for the last four years. Here's the formula: He's literally a Saturday morning cartoon villain. There are no sources, but it's bad. We only have one half of the story so far but it's a real scorcher. Surely he's finished this time! By the time the clarification comes out, they will be on to the next villainous plot. You'll get that sweet rush of denouncing him as an asshole and then we'll be off to next week's villainous plot.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    Is the German Health Ministry a good enough source for you? "Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."" https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to-stop-us-luring-away-firm-seeking-vaccine.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...
    - syshum 7y ago
      They confirmed they Trump offered them money to research in Vaccine in the US Not that Trump wants the Vaccine "only for the US" The truth, like with anything, is probably in the middle. In that what ever nation developed the vaccine their citizens will be the ones to get access to it first, logic dictates that if the vaccine is develop in Germany it will be distributed around Germany first, then other nations shortly there after (probably EU nations next, then the UK, then the US which could be weeks later). Most likely The American government would want that to happen in the US first.
jszymborski 7y ago
Instead of competing bids, US & Germany should be pooling funds for a cure, and carrying out the research wherever the firm feels is most time/$ efficient. If anything, the agreement should be conditional on vaccine being distributed to all funding countries, in order of some index of global health priority. I'm not loving this, especially since things haven't even gotten as bad as they're likely to get.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  The only moral thing to do is to finance the research and then open source everything so a vaccine can be produced world wide.
- arez 7y ago
  why would you work together with the US? They would steal and patent the results in the end or just claim that they invented it because they're the best country anyway and "America First". If the US politics don't change they will be left behind by Europe and China. I know that there are also a lot of US people who don't like Trump, but those people need to step up. Why is nobody protesting? Why isn't there a big Anti-Trump movement? The whole country is either cheering or watching it happen in shock
  - jszymborski 7y ago
    I agree the current admin has made the US an uncredible ally. That said, Trump has been the most unpopular president in US history, and there is a huge resistance movement. The president has been impeached, and according to Generic Ballot polling, more people are willing to not vote for his party each day.
    - syshum 7y ago
      Sounds like someone is in a bubble, RCP polling aggregate data shows Trump (before this crisis) at an all time high for popularity, and more popular than Obama at the end of his first term. There is a resistance movement only on the coasts of the US, and in some other Urban, largely democrat area's get out of Urban US and there is no resistance, at most it is slight disagreement, but most people in rural America support Trump completely this includes many in the "Rust Belt" which democrats need to win a national election, support they have completely and utterly lost
NicoJuicy 7y ago
You do realize that the Trump administration has been blocking international cooperation and had done everything to MAGA / America First. The problem now is that it backfired ^2, since one of the possible solutions isn't coming from the US. Let's let Europe do it's job and show to the world again that they are a trustworthy partner.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  TBH I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Trump's oval office speech where he announced the closing of flights from Europe was one of the most disgusting displays of "leadership" I've ever seen. Right at the moment we needed international cooperation, he was highlighting how great the US was and how bad Europe was and that's why they were seeing spread, when in reality the US is just a couple weeks behind Europe.
  - mikeappell 7y ago
    Not only that, but it blindsided European leaders. You'd think one would want to communicate an incoming travel ban to our allies before announcing it on live television... https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2020/03/12/many-europe-blindsided-travel-restrictions-see-political-move-trump/pzRHbIfn3C5JzdFo9LIEQL/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2020/03/12/many-europ...
    - NicoJuicy 7y ago
      That's what you get with an incompetent leader in the US :) His means of communication is impulsive use of Twitter, so I don't know how you could expect something different.
      - spectramax 7y ago
        From all Americans, I want to apologize for our stupid fucking leader.
        7y ago
jdm2212 7y ago
Gonna go out on a limb and say this is a (dumb) Trump ploy to get reelected. If only America has a vaccine, then in the run-up to the election he'd talk about how much better we're doing than the rest of the world and hope everyone forgets how badly his administration mismanaged the outbreak.
- hatenberg 7y ago
  He just does what he always does. Throw money at it. Same as the pornstars.
  - jdm2212 7y ago
    The exclusivity bit is what I was referring to. The only reason [1] to make it US-exclusive is to boost reelection prospects. [1] There are other, way dumber possible reasons but I guess I'm trying to be charitable. He might not be able to wrap his head around positive-sum problems in general, or he might think that the US gains some advantage from all its trading partners having their economies destroyed.
haunter 7y ago
Timeline: 03.03 CureVac CEO meets Trump [0] 03.11 CureVac removes the CEO [1] 03.15 CureVac denies the american buyout news [2] [0] https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-ceo-daniel-menichella-ber%C3%A4t-mit-us-pr%C3%A4sident-donald-trump-und-mitgliedern-der-corona-task-force-entwicklungsm%C3%B6glichkeiten-eines-coronavirus-impfstoffes https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-ceo-daniel-menichella-b... [1] https://www.curevac.com/news/company-founder-ingmar-hoerr-succeeds-daniel-menichella-as-ceo-of-curevac-ag https://www.curevac.com/news/company-founder-ingmar-hoerr-su... [2] https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-development-of-mrna-based-coronavirus-vaccine-to-protect-people-worldwide https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...
ck2 7y ago
He did this same sh*t with NASA, called in the director and offered him any budget necessary to get a launch to the moon in time for re-election campaign. 2020 was impossible but guess what, we're uselessly going back for 2023/2024 https://i.imgur.com/eWLps8L.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eWLps8L.jpg
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I thought it was Mars he was pushing for during his presidency?
  - dboreham 7y ago
    That was Plan A.
MandieD 7y ago
God I’m glad that Bavaria is pretty much under lockdown starting tomorrow, because I’m not sure I’d want to show my American* face in public right now. *I blend in really well - until I open my mouth and Texas-accented German comes out.
- 13415 7y ago
  You're lucky you're in Bavaria, though. Germany apparently has 25,000 intensive care beds with respirators. The country I currently live in has less than a thousand.
  - mundu_wa_hinya 7y ago
    I'd be surprised if the country I live in has more than 300 ventilators.. for a population of 40mil.
- Tomte 7y ago
  We Germans generally like Americans a lot. In recent years (beginning with Bush II, I'd say), we've felt much colder towards America the country, but I don't see or hear much dislike for Americans. It certainly helps that the Americans we come into contact here are mostly what counts as liberal in America. And those who aren't (I was certainly surprised to find out that my friend and colleague from Connecticut was a Republican with Tea Party sympathies) are courteous without fail and don't run around telling us how they feel about free speech or gun control in Germany. Unlike your Ambassador, I might add…
  - spectramax 7y ago
    As an American, we are inspired by German people and their talent, I've personally spent a lot of time with German suppliers. We will kick our president out in the next election cycle, hope to rebond our diplomatic ties with EU. US-EU ties goes far back into the 20th century. Last 4 years has been tough. Apologies, but I hope people know that this is not what the city dwellers and liberal population of America thinks.
- 7y ago
baq 7y ago
plausible, but I could easily see how this would be Chinese propaganda. no way to tell. I'm not sure which alternative is worse.
- jdm2212 7y ago
  Pretty unlikely that a German newspaper reporting what it heard from German government sources is Chinese propaganda.
- arez 7y ago
  It's officially confirmed: "Germany’s Health Ministry confirmed a report in newspaper Welt am Sonntag"
  - spikels 7y ago
    Don’t think it’s Chinese propaganda but this is the only “official” statement in the article: > “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said, confirming a quote in the newspaper. > “In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,” she added. All the extreme statements are attributed to unnamed sources. Sadly you need to read news articles carefully these days.
    - Igelau 7y ago
      It's embarrassing to see so many fellow humans falling for it in this thread.
InTheArena 7y ago
This article is incorrect. This company already has a large footprint in the United States in Boston, which is the epicenter of much of the covid effort. In addition, it's backed by the Bill and Melinda gates foundation (which apparently has a stake in the company). The same rumors are going around about China buying US companies. This kind of mob-raising by the media happens in every pandemic, and it does result in people being killed. Knock this shit off until the facts are in.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  Are you sure? > Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag." https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to-stop-us-luring-away-firm-seeking-vaccine.html?__twitter_impression=true https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...
  - 23B1 7y ago
    Company's own official statement: https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-development-of-mrna-based-coronavirus-vaccine-to-protect-people-worldwide https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...
- madez 7y ago
  The facts are in. The German government acknowledged reports and said it is engaged in talks. The company reacted and fired the responsible CEO on 2020-03-11, per the companies website. Before you judge reports, look at the available evidence.
- Certhas 7y ago
  The fact that the company is also in Boston is also reported in the German article. That's besides the point though. The real story in this is that reportedly the US Government was/is looking to secure _exclusive_ access.
  - bhk 7y ago
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
this creates hate against Americans among moderate Europeans. General public (in Europe) is fed up since the Bush years. With such actions he just deepens that divide. Soon it will be America against anyone else. But I believe that has been the plan all along since Neocon Wolfowitz times. Bannon just knew how to weaponize this toxic ideology using the Internet and creating a global movement of right-wing f-heads and despots. 2 or 3 weeks ago Bill Maher interviewed Bannon and he actually claimed that Brexit was one of Trumps many achievements (it's not but explains their global thinking). Their ideology is the original virus (and one that is much harder to eradicate). US diplomats associated with the GOP need to be purged from Europe and denied a visa. Also close all US air bases in Germany it's time to GTFO. European countries also should create a travel-ban against the Trump crime family. Let's reason with Americans again when they sober up and vote somebody into office who are actually worth talking to. As Popper said, you don't reason with these people. This is our (Europeans) original sin.
exar0815 7y ago
Lets just say it that way: There is a lot of anti-american undercurrent in the german population. The obvious hate for germany and the economic war agains europe and especially germany from the Trump administration did not help that. Currently, China wants to supply Europe with masks, desinfectant etc... while our "ally" tries to steal a vaccine. This might do a massive, massive amount of damage.
submeta 7y ago
German here. I am wondering if German government cannot prevent this legally (national security reasons?)
- arez 7y ago
  They can. They could ban the trade deal of the vaccine or the IP. They could even nationalize the company, but I don't think that's very likely. The Company is already working together with a government owned health institute so it is possible that they share already some IPs
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  All governments can prevent something like this from happening if they choose to.
- mrits 7y ago
  Of course they can. But I'm not sure Germany wants to start a trade war.
  - foepys 7y ago
    If millions of their citizens' lifes are at risk, Germany will take its chances with that.
    - mrits 7y ago
      Starting a trade war against your #1 trade partner is not on your list to handle the upcoming EU recession.
      - foepys 7y ago
        Neither is losing your population and losing votes to far-right political parties just because you didn't want to upset America. Other EU countries would also side with Germany on that, I suppose. Doesn't matter anyways since it was reported a few minutes ago, that the vaccine patent is not for sale to the US once available.
ramboldio 7y ago
Here is another German newspaper with some more info: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/corona-trump-impfstoff-curevac-1.4845350 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/corona-trump-impfstoff-c... Trump offered around (only?) 1B € for the exclusive development of the vaccine. Apprerently 80% of the company is held by the SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp. I would guess that his incentive to accept sth like this is quite slim.
75dvtwin 7y ago
With regards to : "... German government sources told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S. administration was looking into how it could gain access to a potential vaccine being developed by a German firm, CureVac. ..." Is there a way, to independently check validity of Reuter's claims? In the view as extraordinary claims, require 'extraordinary evidence' My take on reuters, bbc, wash post, new york times ,vox, la times, ars technica is, that they consider Trump and his administration as their 'sworn enemy'. It is not unusual, therefore, for an adversary such as Reuters to engage in what's called 'Atrocity propaganda' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda This has been an effective tactics of information warfare.
- whateveracct 7y ago
  Once a bad actor has made it clear they are a bad actor (which Trump has - he's committed plenty of crimes in broad daylight), they lose the benefit of the doubt. Bad actors can thrive on unbounded benefit of the doubt. At some point, they have to go bankrupt. Trump is well beyond that point.
- 75dvtwin 7y ago
  -- I was downvoted for claiming that Reuters might have lied, and that Reuters had likely engaged in 'Atrocity propaganda' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda against US President and his administration. But I was correct, in this instance - Reuters lied. https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/03/curevac-tweet.png https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/03/curevac-tweet.png
mrich 7y ago
CureVac's main investor is Dietmar Hopp. He's one of the founders of SAP and 8th richest German at the moment. He's also been known to donate large amounts of money, just recently he gifted $100 million to build a new center for heart surgery in Heidelberg. Long story short, I would not expect him to be convinced by anything monetary at this point in his life. He's a class act and would probably be embarrassed to be helping Trump. He's also much deserving of the success he's having with this venture here, to my understanding he kept many biotech firms alive when the going got though.
angeland89 7y ago
Hmm this could backfire onto the US becoming the last to receive help now and in the future. While China on the other hand sends medical supplies and staff to Europe.
hatenberg 7y ago
Tries. Lol. They ousted the US CEO without much fanfare after he met Trump, replaced him with the German founder. The company is tied to a national research and regulatory institute (Paul Erlich) - they can nationalise it in an instant.
mud_dauber 7y ago
Germany, I apologize.
- Igelau 7y ago
  It's all your fault. Fix this.
madez 7y ago
Dang, would you mind taking a look at the behaviour in this thread? The content and the voting feels very odd and unusual.
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago
  Odd and unusual? It matches the political climate of the US. We have a largely despised president with a small following of fanatics. This is what it looks like reflected on social media sites like HN.
  - sidibe 7y ago
    I think the odd and unusual thing was that for a long time comments were mostly against the president and those comments were mostly being downvoted but now comments and votes look more correlated. It might be that people genuinely dislike discussion of politics on here even on a thread that is about politics or that Trump's supporters here are more likely to have downvote buttons.
  - madez 7y ago
    As distastrious as it might be that this may be part now of US American culture, it doesn't need to start happening here nor be tolerated. The nature of this place is that we can talk with reason and share facts based on evidence. If people seek to disturb that, for whatever reason, I advocate for corresponding moderation.
    - 0xff00ffee 7y ago
      > The nature of this place is that we can talk with reason and share facts based on evidence. This has been the utopia of the tech nerd mentality for over 30 years since I first started using UseNet. The reality is, this kind "reasoned and fact-based" discussion model (a) doesn't really exist when there are subjective components or unknowably complexities, but worse (b) it is actually used to suppress discussion! The number of times I've observed discussion with people using "logic" to gatekeep is uncountable. The fact of the matter is: some topics are messy and you can't just throw around "logic" and make it go away. Well, you can sequester yourself, but good luck with that.
spectramax 7y ago
US-EU ties are a much deeper than what the current US president has stirred up. What an embarrassment. Give 8 months and perhaps have a new president and things may turn for the better. I vividly recall the support and warm of the people of Europe, their messages and prayers during the 9/11 attack. When we must cooperate with others, we must look for common principles, underlying foundation of a country. China can become a super power bully around other countries into a dystopian world. Is that what we want in Germany? German companies having to apologize to the CCP for offending them? My theory around the election of Trump through a number of incidents that lead up to it - Russian objectives to dismantle US-EU, Chinese objectives to bankcrupt US by paying off their executives to move the factories to China, Democrats vs Republicans polarization and Trump dropping the American credibility. It is sad. Remember, Trump didn't win popular vote. When middle America is bankrupt, there is no food on the table, drug use is through the roof - they will want some change in Washington, Trump gets elected. I don't want my kids to grow up to a world where democracy is dying, western countries are infighting and there is an increasing risk of complete and utter lack of freedom, loss of privacy and obsolence of liberty. What a sad world to be in. China can be amazing super power if it suddenly got rid of CCP and had an open minded democracy, inspiring and building a model of how other nations can follow. Instead, we are seeing a regression and nationalism rising around the world. Same thing in India.
WA 7y ago
CureVac just rejected rumors about an acquisition https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-development-of-mrna-based-coronavirus-vaccine-to-protect-people-worldwide https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...
tibbydudeza 7y ago
A rather shitty move ... we now know who are "friends" are.
mrfusion 7y ago
Isn’t the bigger news that there’s a vaccine?
salimmadjd 7y ago
One possibility is using sanctions to decide which country can have the vaccine. The assumption is the virus will naturally spread, so controlling which country gets or doesn’t get the vaccine is a form of an indirect biological warfare. There is already efforts to block European countries from sending medicine to Iran as an example [0]. What we should be thinking about is at what point are we going too far with these strong-arming tactics. Outside of humanitarian arguments, there is the possibility that leaving the virus unchecked, it will ultimately find its way to our shores. [0] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/05/iran-coronavirus-medicine-sanctions/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/05/iran-coronavirus-medicin...
jpdus 7y ago
The 80% shareholder (which was a co-founder of SAP and ironically a very controversial person in German football) just send a press release out (German): "Walldorf, 15. März 2020 – Die dievini Hopp BioTech holding GmbH & Co. KG, eine Beteiligungsgesellschaft von SAP-Mitgründer Dietmar Hopp mit Investitionsschwerpunkt in innovative Biotechnologieunternehmen, nimmt Stellung zu Presseberichten über eine vermeintliche exklusive Vergabe eines in der Entwicklung befindlichen Impfstoffs von CureVac gegen das Corona-Virus. dievini ist seit 2005 an der CureVac AG, Tübingen, beteiligt an der sie über 80% der Anteile hält. Zweitgrößter Aktionär ist die Bill-und-Melinda-Gates-Stiftung, die gemeinsam mit CureVac Impfstoffe gegen eine Reihe von Infektionserkrankungen entwickelt. „Seit wir 2005 dievini gründeten, bin ich davon überzeugt, dass das Verstehen molekularer Zusammenhänge Diagnose und Therapie auch schwerster Erkrankungen für Patienten weltweit transformativ verbessern wird“, sagt Dietmar Hopp. „Dem Ziel, alle Menschen vor Infektionen zu schützen und Patienten weltweit besser therapieren und im besten Fall heilen zu können, bin ich ebenso verpflichtet, wie meiner Absicht, nachhaltige innovative Infrastruktur und Arbeitsplätze in Deutschland zu schaffen. Wenn es uns hoffentlich bald gelingt, einen wirksamen Impfstoff gegen das Corona-Virus zu entwickeln, soll dieser Menschen nicht nur regional sondern solidarisch auf der ganzen Welt erreichen, schützen und helfen können. Ich wäre froh, wenn dies durch meine langjährigen Investitionen aus Deutschland heraus erfolgen würde.“ ---- The most important point is the last sentence: If we are sucessful finding a vaccine, it shouldnt be available only regionally but for all people worldwide.
- foepys 7y ago
  Interesting. This might get Dietmar Hopp rehabilitated in the football community. Fans called him (translated ideomatically) "bastard" for the last few weeks because of his (alleged illegal) investments into his own football club.
Igelau 7y ago
> unidentified German government source i.e. the bored intern with nothing better to do than make stuff up. Sprinkle in some quotes from actual high ranking officials on adjacent topics, and you can almost make it feel like it's the same conversation. Hurray journalism.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ohlookabird 7y ago
  The article from "Die Welt" including these quotes has meanwhile been confirmed by the German government (e.g. https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/curevac-usa-wollen-zugriff-auf-deutschen-entwickler-von-corona-impfstoff/25646012.html?ticket=ST-593117-UggXAW7k3Hy7qMA5isCA-ap4 https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/curevac-u...). I suppose the apology you would expect according to your tone in case of misinformation and wrong speculation is not one you would give yourself. Hurray ...
  - Igelau 7y ago
    I'm not asking for apologies. I have no idea what the link you sent me says, nor what Handelsblatt is. If you're trying to prove something you're going to need to serve up something better than that.
redsymbol 7y ago
Dear God, HN, exercise some reading comprehension. The part that's making so many commenters here shut their brains off: > Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.” The quote above is manipulating you into believing that the USA is attepmting to prevent Germans from getting that vaccine. THAT'S the part that is completely not real. EDIT: Some of the questions you want to ask when you see an article quote like this: - Who is this unnamed source, exactly? - Is the article accurately representing what they said? - In particular: does it accurately represent their intended meaning, in context? - Does that person speak for the German government? Or is this one government employee's opinion? - If a German company moves its research labs into the USA, but remains a German company - like the article says - wouldn't that make it impossible for them to hide the secret formula for a vaccine? - Why would the USA (or any country) even try to keep a vaccine formula secret, in the face of a global pandemic like this? If you think about it, is that comic-book-villain scenario even plausible?
- wool_gather 7y ago
  Are you saying that the quote is false? What's the reading of "only for X" that doesn't equal "not for Y"?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kimsant 7y ago
Best case scenario, vacine will be available to everyone in the north by the end of summer, worst case scenario, there's not gonna be anything and in October we will have another pandemia with mutations that eventually will be more deadly. As it happened with other 2nd rounds of a pandemia in history. Now If we get to discover something and the deployment can be only done to X% of the population who do we save? Our own country or the neighbors?... Italy was asking to Europe for medical supply and nobody responded, every single country is gonna play egoistic in this topic and don't expect anyone to give thousands of millions in missed workforce to save the older in neighbor countries. Cold reality.
- kimsant 7y ago
  I assume that mass production of a vacine works by multiplying an initial sample, so the exponential growth can't be started in every country at the same time, there is a time constraint and is global
phkahler 7y ago
Another angle: the US is acting like so many large companies that don't or can't innovate, but try to buy new things instead.
Myce 7y ago
As a Dutch citizen I would prefer Americans to have control over this technology than any other country. Merkel has never really cared for German/European citizens but rather for the rest of world. Perhaps it's a trauma of WW2, and she wants to do good. However in these times it's important that own citizens are prio 1. Trump cares for Americans and America has hardly ever let it's Western European allies down. From my perspective it's in good hands in the U.S. and I trust anything that comes out of it will also benefit the rest of the world eventually.
- foepys 7y ago
  You seriously want to have a county that is touting America First for the last 4 years in control over medicine that might cure or at least protect your fellow citizens instead of your neighbor and biggest trading partner that is also part of the same governing organization? You have to be a troll or have a very strange agenda, seriously.
  - Myce 7y ago
    Have you followed the situation in Europe lately? It's a mess. Also during these times, no coordination of the EU at all. When it comes to it, every country is on its own. But worst is that European leaders are afraid to quickly take (tough) measures, something American leaders have shown to do much easier.
brrrrr1 7y ago
Lets just hope the US wont invade some country or start a war somewhere as a result of this virus. Quite the possibility given whom the Americans chose to represent them.
mgolawala 7y ago
The fundamental problem is that the narrative of the current administration is that globalization and global co-operation has been bad for the United States and that this policy has resulted in the U.S. being taken advantage of. However, the correct response to this pandemic would go against this narrative completely. It is a common foe faced by all nations, and is an ideal situation for being tackled through global co-operation! The current administration is continuing to try to solve this problem without turning to global co-operation. If the vaccine is developed in Germany, or the UK or China, the U.S. would then need to license this technology, and it would reveal that the U.S does in fact need the world, and that global co-operation is, at the very least, needed in some situations. It would lose face. If on the other hand, the administration can claim "Look! We developed the vaccine here in the U.S. .. I told you we didn't need those other guys. We will take care of Americans first, and then we will help the others." then it would validate the "America first" narrative.
yingw787 7y ago
To put a positive light on this disturbing news, I, like many here, am deeply grateful to the scientists and engineers (including at CureVac) working tirelessly around the clock and around the world to help develop a vaccine, save millions of lives, and let us all return to normal life. I'm sick with something viral at the moment, and I hope to do my part by social distancing, disinfecting public surfaces I'm touching, and working pretty much exclusively from home. Flatten the curve, and let those who truly need it take the ICU beds and hospital spaces. One way or another, it'll be over before we know it :)
alkonaut 7y ago
Would pharmaceutical companies be able to protect any IP for a vaccine? I mean wouldn’t governments just require a company that discovers a vaccine to quickly distribute the findings so every pharmaceutical company in the world can help manufacture it?
raincom 7y ago
Trump is more worried about the stock market and the economy. Two more weeks of blood in the stock market can crush his chances of being reelected. That's why, I think, he must be trying to get a few weeks advantage.
kimsant 7y ago
How many vaccines will be produced before September 15? Who will get the shots? People talks about open sourcing and moral, but here we have phisical constraints, hard decisions will have to be done. In Italy they already do not intubate people older than 80, for example... Is not that doctors are evil, is that phisical world is limited.
l0b0 7y ago
A Reuters article is flagged? Can we have some context as to why?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jackcosgrove 7y ago
  I am not sure why it was flagged, but the Reuters article was edited after publication without a notice of such a change. Specifically the following can no longer be found in the article. > Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."

309 points by nocturnial 7y ago

blattimwind 7y ago

Coincidentally, CureVac's board of directors replaced its American CEO with one of the German founders yesterday.

madez 7y ago
That didn't happen yesterday. "On March 2, CureVac's then-CEO Daniel Menichella attended a meeting at the White House to discuss coronavirus vaccine development with Trump and members of his coronavirus taskforce. On March 11, the company announced Menichella would be replaced by company founder Ingmar Hoerr, without giving a reason why." Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-us-wrestle-over-coronavirus-vaccine/a-52777990 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-us-wrestle-over-coronaviru...
dharma1 7y ago
from the founder: https://endpts.com/curevacs-ingmar-hoerr-tells-us-why-he-returned-to-take-on-a-pandemic-ngm-loses-a-president/ https://endpts.com/curevacs-ingmar-hoerr-tells-us-why-he-ret...

roywiggins 7y ago

The best chance we have against this thing is international cooperation. This doesn't bode well, if the US government thinks it can spend its way into getting the vaccine before everyone else. "Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."" https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to-stop-us-luring-away-firm-seeking-vaccine.html?__twitter_impression=true https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...

mushufasa 7y ago
To anyone either naive or cynical about global governance and wondering why we don't all cooperate, I recommend this book: "Governing the World: The History of an Idea, 1815 to Present" by Mark Mazower https://books.google.com/books/about/Governing_the_World.html?id=6-GAmwEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/Governing_the_World.htm... These behaviors are not new. The attitude the current American administration has towards the idea of global governance is an old attitude, and will prevent cooperation. This will not be the last time you see something similar in the news, and there will be no change unless the administration fundamentally changes its beliefs (read: the administration changes).
theferalrobot 7y ago
Yeah and if you actually read the Reuters report it says the exact opposite of this business insider drivel. > The U.S. 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 U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-usa/germany-tries-to-stop-u-s-from-luring-away-firm-seeking-coronavirus-vaccine-idUSKBN2120IV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...
- roywiggins 7y ago
  Just because those companies say that doesn't mean the Trump administration doesn't think it can buy an exclusive cure for itself. That they can't doesn't matter as much as they appear to be trying. The Welt am Sonntag report says "US-Präsident Donald Trump versucht offenbar, deutsche Wissenschaftler, die an einem potenziellen Corona-Impfstoff arbeiten, mit hohen finanziellen Zuwendungen nach Amerika zu locken beziehungsweise das Medikament exklusiv für sein Land zu sichern." which Google Translate assures me means "US President Donald Trump apparently tries to lure German scientists working on a potential corona vaccine to America with high financial donations or to secure the drug exclusively for his country." And the German health ministry confirmed the Welt story to Reuters. https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article206555143/Corona-USA-will-Zugriff-auf-deutsche-Impfstoff-Firma.html https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article206555143/Corona-USA-w...

lordnacho 7y ago

Why would the company need to exclusively sell to the US? Is the supply expected to be limited? Once the drug is discovered, can't it be licensed around the world for mass production?

onetimemanytime 7y ago
1 week delay can mean 1 million deaths
- MegaButts 7y ago
  Please share your data and calculations for this claim. I understand how exponential growth works, and I realize there is an incubation period, but this really just feels like unnecessary fear mongering considering we're at less than 6000 deaths worldwide as of now. https://talksub.com/covid19 https://talksub.com/covid19
  - Certhas 7y ago
    I agree it's hyperbolic, but the numbers are staggering and quoting the current deaths are really misleading in this respect. This will affect small percentages of everyone. A million deaths world wide, with a disease that is expected to reach 60+% of the population is not much. It's the difference in the death rate of 0.02%. In other words, if a sufficiently early intervention manages to reduce the death rate from 1% to 0.98%, that's a million lifes saved. However, the sensitive dependence on initial conditions only applies to things that happen during exponential growth. By the time a vaccine hits (according to many reputable sources about a year from now) we will be in a very different stage of the disease anyway.
  - gameswithgo 7y ago
    So you expect some mechanism to prevent the exponential growth then? Which?
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  The earliest a vaccine will come is a year from now. The good majority of deaths will happen before then. So a one week delay won't be that costly.

StavrosK 7y ago

> Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.” At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's goal was to get everyone to dislike the US, out of some misguided sense that "if you're good, everyone hates you, therefore if you make everyone hate you that means you're good". Is he seriously trying to profiteer off the pandemic?

xbmcuser 7y ago
Probably he sees this as a way to win the election not about selling it for more money. He gets the vaccine and then trumps to his base that how americans only have the vaccine because america is so great etc and he got the vaccine for them.
- onyva 7y ago
  USA is so far behind China and Europe in so many ways, I don’t think these type of dirty games are gonna make Americans feel better about themselves. It’s a dying society and it shows.

insulanian 7y ago

> Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.” Why?

flohofwoe 7y ago
"America First". That's why :/
bcrosby95 7y ago
Politics. He would love to present this talking point among all his other ones, such as Google having 1,700 engineers working on a website.
- thomasz 7y ago
  No, that is not normal politics. It’s sociopathic and it’s self defeating.
jszymborski 7y ago
"America First" is the administrations primary guiding principle. There will be production shortages/delays. This would mean Americans would get vaccines first.
- klipt 7y ago
  We have production capacity to make flu vaccines for everyone, I don't think capacity is an issue, the issue is more a proven safe vaccine doesn't exist yet.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > "America First" is the administrations primary guiding principle. No, kleptocracy is the administatin’s primary guiding principle. “America First” is one of the main propaganda tactics they use to sell their kleptocracy to the masses, not a guiding principle.

Scipio_Afri 7y ago

Why are we doing this, especially to our allies? If it was a Chinese company even then with their history it might feel justified but then why piss off any country that might have a fix to something hurting you economically. Surely we can’t be that short sighted. This sounds like another attempt for Trump to claim he’s a hero in a situation after totally fucking it up initially. I say this as an American who didn’t vote for him and saw him for what he was and is, he’s a bigger asshole than I had ever imagined and I’m sorry.

rriepe 7y ago
We're not. It's the same article about Trump that has come out every weekend for the last four years. Here's the formula: He's literally a Saturday morning cartoon villain. There are no sources, but it's bad. We only have one half of the story so far but it's a real scorcher. Surely he's finished this time! By the time the clarification comes out, they will be on to the next villainous plot. You'll get that sweet rush of denouncing him as an asshole and then we'll be off to next week's villainous plot.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  Is the German Health Ministry a good enough source for you? "Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."" https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to-stop-us-luring-away-firm-seeking-vaccine.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...
  - syshum 7y ago
    They confirmed they Trump offered them money to research in Vaccine in the US Not that Trump wants the Vaccine "only for the US" The truth, like with anything, is probably in the middle. In that what ever nation developed the vaccine their citizens will be the ones to get access to it first, logic dictates that if the vaccine is develop in Germany it will be distributed around Germany first, then other nations shortly there after (probably EU nations next, then the UK, then the US which could be weeks later). Most likely The American government would want that to happen in the US first.

jszymborski 7y ago

Instead of competing bids, US & Germany should be pooling funds for a cure, and carrying out the research wherever the firm feels is most time/$ efficient. If anything, the agreement should be conditional on vaccine being distributed to all funding countries, in order of some index of global health priority. I'm not loving this, especially since things haven't even gotten as bad as they're likely to get.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
The only moral thing to do is to finance the research and then open source everything so a vaccine can be produced world wide.
arez 7y ago
why would you work together with the US? They would steal and patent the results in the end or just claim that they invented it because they're the best country anyway and "America First". If the US politics don't change they will be left behind by Europe and China. I know that there are also a lot of US people who don't like Trump, but those people need to step up. Why is nobody protesting? Why isn't there a big Anti-Trump movement? The whole country is either cheering or watching it happen in shock
- jszymborski 7y ago
  I agree the current admin has made the US an uncredible ally. That said, Trump has been the most unpopular president in US history, and there is a huge resistance movement. The president has been impeached, and according to Generic Ballot polling, more people are willing to not vote for his party each day.
  - syshum 7y ago
    Sounds like someone is in a bubble, RCP polling aggregate data shows Trump (before this crisis) at an all time high for popularity, and more popular than Obama at the end of his first term. There is a resistance movement only on the coasts of the US, and in some other Urban, largely democrat area's get out of Urban US and there is no resistance, at most it is slight disagreement, but most people in rural America support Trump completely this includes many in the "Rust Belt" which democrats need to win a national election, support they have completely and utterly lost

NicoJuicy 7y ago

You do realize that the Trump administration has been blocking international cooperation and had done everything to MAGA / America First. The problem now is that it backfired ^2, since one of the possible solutions isn't coming from the US. Let's let Europe do it's job and show to the world again that they are a trustworthy partner.

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
TBH I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Trump's oval office speech where he announced the closing of flights from Europe was one of the most disgusting displays of "leadership" I've ever seen. Right at the moment we needed international cooperation, he was highlighting how great the US was and how bad Europe was and that's why they were seeing spread, when in reality the US is just a couple weeks behind Europe.
- mikeappell 7y ago
  Not only that, but it blindsided European leaders. You'd think one would want to communicate an incoming travel ban to our allies before announcing it on live television... https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2020/03/12/many-europe-blindsided-travel-restrictions-see-political-move-trump/pzRHbIfn3C5JzdFo9LIEQL/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2020/03/12/many-europ...
  - NicoJuicy 7y ago
    That's what you get with an incompetent leader in the US :) His means of communication is impulsive use of Twitter, so I don't know how you could expect something different.
    - spectramax 7y ago
      From all Americans, I want to apologize for our stupid fucking leader.
      - 7y ago

jdm2212 7y ago

Gonna go out on a limb and say this is a (dumb) Trump ploy to get reelected. If only America has a vaccine, then in the run-up to the election he'd talk about how much better we're doing than the rest of the world and hope everyone forgets how badly his administration mismanaged the outbreak.

hatenberg 7y ago
He just does what he always does. Throw money at it. Same as the pornstars.
- jdm2212 7y ago
  The exclusivity bit is what I was referring to. The only reason [1] to make it US-exclusive is to boost reelection prospects. [1] There are other, way dumber possible reasons but I guess I'm trying to be charitable. He might not be able to wrap his head around positive-sum problems in general, or he might think that the US gains some advantage from all its trading partners having their economies destroyed.

haunter 7y ago

Timeline: 03.03 CureVac CEO meets Trump [0] 03.11 CureVac removes the CEO [1] 03.15 CureVac denies the american buyout news [2] [0] https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-ceo-daniel-menichella-ber%C3%A4t-mit-us-pr%C3%A4sident-donald-trump-und-mitgliedern-der-corona-task-force-entwicklungsm%C3%B6glichkeiten-eines-coronavirus-impfstoffes https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-ceo-daniel-menichella-b... [1] https://www.curevac.com/news/company-founder-ingmar-hoerr-succeeds-daniel-menichella-as-ceo-of-curevac-ag https://www.curevac.com/news/company-founder-ingmar-hoerr-su... [2] https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-development-of-mrna-based-coronavirus-vaccine-to-protect-people-worldwide https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...

ck2 7y ago

He did this same sh*t with NASA, called in the director and offered him any budget necessary to get a launch to the moon in time for re-election campaign. 2020 was impossible but guess what, we're uselessly going back for 2023/2024 https://i.imgur.com/eWLps8L.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eWLps8L.jpg

djsumdog 7y ago
I thought it was Mars he was pushing for during his presidency?
- dboreham 7y ago
  That was Plan A.

MandieD 7y ago

God I’m glad that Bavaria is pretty much under lockdown starting tomorrow, because I’m not sure I’d want to show my American* face in public right now. *I blend in really well - until I open my mouth and Texas-accented German comes out.

13415 7y ago
You're lucky you're in Bavaria, though. Germany apparently has 25,000 intensive care beds with respirators. The country I currently live in has less than a thousand.
- mundu_wa_hinya 7y ago
  I'd be surprised if the country I live in has more than 300 ventilators.. for a population of 40mil.
Tomte 7y ago
We Germans generally like Americans a lot. In recent years (beginning with Bush II, I'd say), we've felt much colder towards America the country, but I don't see or hear much dislike for Americans. It certainly helps that the Americans we come into contact here are mostly what counts as liberal in America. And those who aren't (I was certainly surprised to find out that my friend and colleague from Connecticut was a Republican with Tea Party sympathies) are courteous without fail and don't run around telling us how they feel about free speech or gun control in Germany. Unlike your Ambassador, I might add…
- spectramax 7y ago
  As an American, we are inspired by German people and their talent, I've personally spent a lot of time with German suppliers. We will kick our president out in the next election cycle, hope to rebond our diplomatic ties with EU. US-EU ties goes far back into the 20th century. Last 4 years has been tough. Apologies, but I hope people know that this is not what the city dwellers and liberal population of America thinks.
7y ago

baq 7y ago

plausible, but I could easily see how this would be Chinese propaganda. no way to tell. I'm not sure which alternative is worse.

jdm2212 7y ago
Pretty unlikely that a German newspaper reporting what it heard from German government sources is Chinese propaganda.
arez 7y ago
It's officially confirmed: "Germany’s Health Ministry confirmed a report in newspaper Welt am Sonntag"
- spikels 7y ago
  Don’t think it’s Chinese propaganda but this is the only “official” statement in the article: > “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said, confirming a quote in the newspaper. > “In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,” she added. All the extreme statements are attributed to unnamed sources. Sadly you need to read news articles carefully these days.
  - Igelau 7y ago
    It's embarrassing to see so many fellow humans falling for it in this thread.

InTheArena 7y ago

This article is incorrect. This company already has a large footprint in the United States in Boston, which is the epicenter of much of the covid effort. In addition, it's backed by the Bill and Melinda gates foundation (which apparently has a stake in the company). The same rumors are going around about China buying US companies. This kind of mob-raising by the media happens in every pandemic, and it does result in people being killed. Knock this shit off until the facts are in.

roywiggins 7y ago
Are you sure? > Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag." https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-tries-to-stop-us-luring-away-firm-seeking-vaccine.html?__twitter_impression=true https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...
- 23B1 7y ago
  Company's own official statement: https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-development-of-mrna-based-coronavirus-vaccine-to-protect-people-worldwide https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...
madez 7y ago
The facts are in. The German government acknowledged reports and said it is engaged in talks. The company reacted and fired the responsible CEO on 2020-03-11, per the companies website. Before you judge reports, look at the available evidence.
Certhas 7y ago
The fact that the company is also in Boston is also reported in the German article. That's besides the point though. The real story in this is that reportedly the US Government was/is looking to secure _exclusive_ access.
- bhk 7y ago

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago

this creates hate against Americans among moderate Europeans. General public (in Europe) is fed up since the Bush years. With such actions he just deepens that divide. Soon it will be America against anyone else. But I believe that has been the plan all along since Neocon Wolfowitz times. Bannon just knew how to weaponize this toxic ideology using the Internet and creating a global movement of right-wing f-heads and despots. 2 or 3 weeks ago Bill Maher interviewed Bannon and he actually claimed that Brexit was one of Trumps many achievements (it's not but explains their global thinking). Their ideology is the original virus (and one that is much harder to eradicate). US diplomats associated with the GOP need to be purged from Europe and denied a visa. Also close all US air bases in Germany it's time to GTFO. European countries also should create a travel-ban against the Trump crime family. Let's reason with Americans again when they sober up and vote somebody into office who are actually worth talking to. As Popper said, you don't reason with these people. This is our (Europeans) original sin.

exar0815 7y ago

Lets just say it that way: There is a lot of anti-american undercurrent in the german population. The obvious hate for germany and the economic war agains europe and especially germany from the Trump administration did not help that. Currently, China wants to supply Europe with masks, desinfectant etc... while our "ally" tries to steal a vaccine. This might do a massive, massive amount of damage.

submeta 7y ago

German here. I am wondering if German government cannot prevent this legally (national security reasons?)

arez 7y ago
They can. They could ban the trade deal of the vaccine or the IP. They could even nationalize the company, but I don't think that's very likely. The Company is already working together with a government owned health institute so it is possible that they share already some IPs
zzzcpan 7y ago
All governments can prevent something like this from happening if they choose to.
mrits 7y ago
Of course they can. But I'm not sure Germany wants to start a trade war.
- foepys 7y ago
  If millions of their citizens' lifes are at risk, Germany will take its chances with that.
  - mrits 7y ago
    Starting a trade war against your #1 trade partner is not on your list to handle the upcoming EU recession.
    - foepys 7y ago
      Neither is losing your population and losing votes to far-right political parties just because you didn't want to upset America. Other EU countries would also side with Germany on that, I suppose. Doesn't matter anyways since it was reported a few minutes ago, that the vaccine patent is not for sale to the US once available.

ramboldio 7y ago

Here is another German newspaper with some more info: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/corona-trump-impfstoff-curevac-1.4845350 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/corona-trump-impfstoff-c... Trump offered around (only?) 1B € for the exclusive development of the vaccine. Apprerently 80% of the company is held by the SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp. I would guess that his incentive to accept sth like this is quite slim.

75dvtwin 7y ago

With regards to : "... German government sources told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S. administration was looking into how it could gain access to a potential vaccine being developed by a German firm, CureVac. ..." Is there a way, to independently check validity of Reuter's claims? In the view as extraordinary claims, require 'extraordinary evidence' My take on reuters, bbc, wash post, new york times ,vox, la times, ars technica is, that they consider Trump and his administration as their 'sworn enemy'. It is not unusual, therefore, for an adversary such as Reuters to engage in what's called 'Atrocity propaganda' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda This has been an effective tactics of information warfare.

whateveracct 7y ago
Once a bad actor has made it clear they are a bad actor (which Trump has - he's committed plenty of crimes in broad daylight), they lose the benefit of the doubt. Bad actors can thrive on unbounded benefit of the doubt. At some point, they have to go bankrupt. Trump is well beyond that point.
75dvtwin 7y ago
-- I was downvoted for claiming that Reuters might have lied, and that Reuters had likely engaged in 'Atrocity propaganda' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda against US President and his administration. But I was correct, in this instance - Reuters lied. https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/03/curevac-tweet.png https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/03/curevac-tweet.png

mrich 7y ago

CureVac's main investor is Dietmar Hopp. He's one of the founders of SAP and 8th richest German at the moment. He's also been known to donate large amounts of money, just recently he gifted $100 million to build a new center for heart surgery in Heidelberg. Long story short, I would not expect him to be convinced by anything monetary at this point in his life. He's a class act and would probably be embarrassed to be helping Trump. He's also much deserving of the success he's having with this venture here, to my understanding he kept many biotech firms alive when the going got though.

angeland89 7y ago

Hmm this could backfire onto the US becoming the last to receive help now and in the future. While China on the other hand sends medical supplies and staff to Europe.

hatenberg 7y ago

Tries. Lol. They ousted the US CEO without much fanfare after he met Trump, replaced him with the German founder. The company is tied to a national research and regulatory institute (Paul Erlich) - they can nationalise it in an instant.

mud_dauber 7y ago

Germany, I apologize.

Igelau 7y ago
It's all your fault. Fix this.

madez 7y ago

Dang, would you mind taking a look at the behaviour in this thread? The content and the voting feels very odd and unusual.

0xff00ffee 7y ago
Odd and unusual? It matches the political climate of the US. We have a largely despised president with a small following of fanatics. This is what it looks like reflected on social media sites like HN.
- sidibe 7y ago
  I think the odd and unusual thing was that for a long time comments were mostly against the president and those comments were mostly being downvoted but now comments and votes look more correlated. It might be that people genuinely dislike discussion of politics on here even on a thread that is about politics or that Trump's supporters here are more likely to have downvote buttons.
- madez 7y ago
  As distastrious as it might be that this may be part now of US American culture, it doesn't need to start happening here nor be tolerated. The nature of this place is that we can talk with reason and share facts based on evidence. If people seek to disturb that, for whatever reason, I advocate for corresponding moderation.
  - 0xff00ffee 7y ago
    > The nature of this place is that we can talk with reason and share facts based on evidence. This has been the utopia of the tech nerd mentality for over 30 years since I first started using UseNet. The reality is, this kind "reasoned and fact-based" discussion model (a) doesn't really exist when there are subjective components or unknowably complexities, but worse (b) it is actually used to suppress discussion! The number of times I've observed discussion with people using "logic" to gatekeep is uncountable. The fact of the matter is: some topics are messy and you can't just throw around "logic" and make it go away. Well, you can sequester yourself, but good luck with that.

spectramax 7y ago

US-EU ties are a much deeper than what the current US president has stirred up. What an embarrassment. Give 8 months and perhaps have a new president and things may turn for the better. I vividly recall the support and warm of the people of Europe, their messages and prayers during the 9/11 attack. When we must cooperate with others, we must look for common principles, underlying foundation of a country. China can become a super power bully around other countries into a dystopian world. Is that what we want in Germany? German companies having to apologize to the CCP for offending them? My theory around the election of Trump through a number of incidents that lead up to it - Russian objectives to dismantle US-EU, Chinese objectives to bankcrupt US by paying off their executives to move the factories to China, Democrats vs Republicans polarization and Trump dropping the American credibility. It is sad. Remember, Trump didn't win popular vote. When middle America is bankrupt, there is no food on the table, drug use is through the roof - they will want some change in Washington, Trump gets elected. I don't want my kids to grow up to a world where democracy is dying, western countries are infighting and there is an increasing risk of complete and utter lack of freedom, loss of privacy and obsolence of liberty. What a sad world to be in. China can be amazing super power if it suddenly got rid of CCP and had an open minded democracy, inspiring and building a model of how other nations can follow. Instead, we are seeing a regression and nationalism rising around the world. Same thing in India.

WA 7y ago

CureVac just rejected rumors about an acquisition https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-development-of-mrna-based-coronavirus-vaccine-to-protect-people-worldwide https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...

tibbydudeza 7y ago

A rather shitty move ... we now know who are "friends" are.

mrfusion 7y ago

Isn’t the bigger news that there’s a vaccine?

salimmadjd 7y ago

One possibility is using sanctions to decide which country can have the vaccine. The assumption is the virus will naturally spread, so controlling which country gets or doesn’t get the vaccine is a form of an indirect biological warfare. There is already efforts to block European countries from sending medicine to Iran as an example [0]. What we should be thinking about is at what point are we going too far with these strong-arming tactics. Outside of humanitarian arguments, there is the possibility that leaving the virus unchecked, it will ultimately find its way to our shores. [0] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/05/iran-coronavirus-medicine-sanctions/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/05/iran-coronavirus-medicin...

jpdus 7y ago

The 80% shareholder (which was a co-founder of SAP and ironically a very controversial person in German football) just send a press release out (German): "Walldorf, 15. März 2020 – Die dievini Hopp BioTech holding GmbH & Co. KG, eine Beteiligungsgesellschaft von SAP-Mitgründer Dietmar Hopp mit Investitionsschwerpunkt in innovative Biotechnologieunternehmen, nimmt Stellung zu Presseberichten über eine vermeintliche exklusive Vergabe eines in der Entwicklung befindlichen Impfstoffs von CureVac gegen das Corona-Virus. dievini ist seit 2005 an der CureVac AG, Tübingen, beteiligt an der sie über 80% der Anteile hält. Zweitgrößter Aktionär ist die Bill-und-Melinda-Gates-Stiftung, die gemeinsam mit CureVac Impfstoffe gegen eine Reihe von Infektionserkrankungen entwickelt. „Seit wir 2005 dievini gründeten, bin ich davon überzeugt, dass das Verstehen molekularer Zusammenhänge Diagnose und Therapie auch schwerster Erkrankungen für Patienten weltweit transformativ verbessern wird“, sagt Dietmar Hopp. „Dem Ziel, alle Menschen vor Infektionen zu schützen und Patienten weltweit besser therapieren und im besten Fall heilen zu können, bin ich ebenso verpflichtet, wie meiner Absicht, nachhaltige innovative Infrastruktur und Arbeitsplätze in Deutschland zu schaffen. Wenn es uns hoffentlich bald gelingt, einen wirksamen Impfstoff gegen das Corona-Virus zu entwickeln, soll dieser Menschen nicht nur regional sondern solidarisch auf der ganzen Welt erreichen, schützen und helfen können. Ich wäre froh, wenn dies durch meine langjährigen Investitionen aus Deutschland heraus erfolgen würde.“ ---- The most important point is the last sentence: If we are sucessful finding a vaccine, it shouldnt be available only regionally but for all people worldwide.

foepys 7y ago
Interesting. This might get Dietmar Hopp rehabilitated in the football community. Fans called him (translated ideomatically) "bastard" for the last few weeks because of his (alleged illegal) investments into his own football club.

Igelau 7y ago

> unidentified German government source i.e. the bored intern with nothing better to do than make stuff up. Sprinkle in some quotes from actual high ranking officials on adjacent topics, and you can almost make it feel like it's the same conversation. Hurray journalism.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ohlookabird 7y ago
The article from "Die Welt" including these quotes has meanwhile been confirmed by the German government (e.g. https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/curevac-usa-wollen-zugriff-auf-deutschen-entwickler-von-corona-impfstoff/25646012.html?ticket=ST-593117-UggXAW7k3Hy7qMA5isCA-ap4 https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/curevac-u...). I suppose the apology you would expect according to your tone in case of misinformation and wrong speculation is not one you would give yourself. Hurray ...
- Igelau 7y ago
  I'm not asking for apologies. I have no idea what the link you sent me says, nor what Handelsblatt is. If you're trying to prove something you're going to need to serve up something better than that.

redsymbol 7y ago

Dear God, HN, exercise some reading comprehension. The part that's making so many commenters here shut their brains off: > Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.” The quote above is manipulating you into believing that the USA is attepmting to prevent Germans from getting that vaccine. THAT'S the part that is completely not real. EDIT: Some of the questions you want to ask when you see an article quote like this: - Who is this unnamed source, exactly? - Is the article accurately representing what they said? - In particular: does it accurately represent their intended meaning, in context? - Does that person speak for the German government? Or is this one government employee's opinion? - If a German company moves its research labs into the USA, but remains a German company - like the article says - wouldn't that make it impossible for them to hide the secret formula for a vaccine? - Why would the USA (or any country) even try to keep a vaccine formula secret, in the face of a global pandemic like this? If you think about it, is that comic-book-villain scenario even plausible?

wool_gather 7y ago
Are you saying that the quote is false? What's the reading of "only for X" that doesn't equal "not for Y"?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

kimsant 7y ago

Best case scenario, vacine will be available to everyone in the north by the end of summer, worst case scenario, there's not gonna be anything and in October we will have another pandemia with mutations that eventually will be more deadly. As it happened with other 2nd rounds of a pandemia in history. Now If we get to discover something and the deployment can be only done to X% of the population who do we save? Our own country or the neighbors?... Italy was asking to Europe for medical supply and nobody responded, every single country is gonna play egoistic in this topic and don't expect anyone to give thousands of millions in missed workforce to save the older in neighbor countries. Cold reality.

kimsant 7y ago
I assume that mass production of a vacine works by multiplying an initial sample, so the exponential growth can't be started in every country at the same time, there is a time constraint and is global

phkahler 7y ago

Another angle: the US is acting like so many large companies that don't or can't innovate, but try to buy new things instead.

Myce 7y ago

As a Dutch citizen I would prefer Americans to have control over this technology than any other country. Merkel has never really cared for German/European citizens but rather for the rest of world. Perhaps it's a trauma of WW2, and she wants to do good. However in these times it's important that own citizens are prio 1. Trump cares for Americans and America has hardly ever let it's Western European allies down. From my perspective it's in good hands in the U.S. and I trust anything that comes out of it will also benefit the rest of the world eventually.

foepys 7y ago
You seriously want to have a county that is touting America First for the last 4 years in control over medicine that might cure or at least protect your fellow citizens instead of your neighbor and biggest trading partner that is also part of the same governing organization? You have to be a troll or have a very strange agenda, seriously.
- Myce 7y ago
  Have you followed the situation in Europe lately? It's a mess. Also during these times, no coordination of the EU at all. When it comes to it, every country is on its own. But worst is that European leaders are afraid to quickly take (tough) measures, something American leaders have shown to do much easier.

brrrrr1 7y ago

Lets just hope the US wont invade some country or start a war somewhere as a result of this virus. Quite the possibility given whom the Americans chose to represent them.

mgolawala 7y ago

The fundamental problem is that the narrative of the current administration is that globalization and global co-operation has been bad for the United States and that this policy has resulted in the U.S. being taken advantage of. However, the correct response to this pandemic would go against this narrative completely. It is a common foe faced by all nations, and is an ideal situation for being tackled through global co-operation! The current administration is continuing to try to solve this problem without turning to global co-operation. If the vaccine is developed in Germany, or the UK or China, the U.S. would then need to license this technology, and it would reveal that the U.S does in fact need the world, and that global co-operation is, at the very least, needed in some situations. It would lose face. If on the other hand, the administration can claim "Look! We developed the vaccine here in the U.S. .. I told you we didn't need those other guys. We will take care of Americans first, and then we will help the others." then it would validate the "America first" narrative.

yingw787 7y ago

To put a positive light on this disturbing news, I, like many here, am deeply grateful to the scientists and engineers (including at CureVac) working tirelessly around the clock and around the world to help develop a vaccine, save millions of lives, and let us all return to normal life. I'm sick with something viral at the moment, and I hope to do my part by social distancing, disinfecting public surfaces I'm touching, and working pretty much exclusively from home. Flatten the curve, and let those who truly need it take the ICU beds and hospital spaces. One way or another, it'll be over before we know it :)

alkonaut 7y ago

Would pharmaceutical companies be able to protect any IP for a vaccine? I mean wouldn’t governments just require a company that discovers a vaccine to quickly distribute the findings so every pharmaceutical company in the world can help manufacture it?

raincom 7y ago

Trump is more worried about the stock market and the economy. Two more weeks of blood in the stock market can crush his chances of being reelected. That's why, I think, he must be trying to get a few weeks advantage.

kimsant 7y ago

How many vaccines will be produced before September 15? Who will get the shots? People talks about open sourcing and moral, but here we have phisical constraints, hard decisions will have to be done. In Italy they already do not intubate people older than 80, for example... Is not that doctors are evil, is that phisical world is limited.

l0b0 7y ago

A Reuters article is flagged? Can we have some context as to why?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jackcosgrove 7y ago
I am not sure why it was flagged, but the Reuters article was edited after publication without a notice of such a change. Specifically the following can no longer be found in the article. > Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag."