The article has one throw away line supporting the headline and then a lot of fluff. The WSJ journal article has a lot more background on the various parties be

The article has one throw away line supporting the headline and then a lot of fluff. The WSJ journal article has a lot more background on the various parties behind this and the financial incentives. www.wsj.com/amp/articles/oxford-developed-covid-vaccine-then-scholars-clashed-over-money-11603300412 >One longtime Oxford donor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was assisting with Covid-19 efforts globally. In March, Prof. Bell says Trevor Mundel, head of the foundation’s global-health program, told him, “You guys need a partner.” >Prof. Bell says he told Profs. Gilbert and Hill that they had a conflict of interest in any talks between Oxford and potential partners, because of their ownership stake in Vaccitech. > Prof. Bell also didn’t want Vaccitech at the negotiating table, and considered it inconceivable that the company, with just a few dozen staff, could help coordinate a global vaccine rollout. > After 10 days of talks, AstraZeneca agreed to commit to global distribution that wouldn’t favor any one country or region. It also agreed to provide the vaccine at cost during the pandemic, or at least until next summer, pending terms they were still hashing out. U.K. government officials worked on a deal to pay up-front for doses. > Details of Oxford’s agreement with AstraZeneca are private. But a company spokesman said it guarantees to sell at no profit the roughly 3 billion doses for which it already has agreements in place. >The big drugmaker offered a sweetener: It said that as long as Vaccitech signed over its Covid-19 vaccine rights to Oxford to enable an exclusive license, AstraZeneca in turn promised to explore ways to collaborate with the small biotech firm, according to an agreement signed by Dr. Pangalos. The nonbinding agreement cited “AstraZeneca’s potential participation in Vaccitech’s proposed Series B financing.” > “The university didn’t enter this discussion with the idea of making a ton of money,” Prof. Bell says. But it didn’t want to be naïve, either: “Let’s say [the vaccine] becomes a seasonal coronavirus vaccine, and it sells a billion dollars a year. For us to be sitting there and making no money looks pretty dumb.”