"Friede says Moderna is at least in talks with the WHO. And he remains hopeful the company will ultimately agree to provide some kind of tech transfer." Likely

"Friede says Moderna is at least in talks with the WHO. And he remains hopeful the company will ultimately agree to provide some kind of tech transfer." Likely because Moderna realizes South Africa is not the United States. a far greater percentage of resources would absolutely be dedicated in the public interest to replicating the drug and completely reverse-engineering it; its only a matter of time. companies like Moderna cant blanket NDA entire educational institutions as they study this, and pipeline the results directly into quantifiable quarterly revenue. there is a much more tangible demand for transparency. Moderna will likely make a round of offers and counter offers depending on how molecularly obscure the drug is based on South Africa's progress. Skilled and talented South African (and international) chemists and biologists who can demonstrate a sufficiently advanced progress may be in fact rewarded by Moderna simply walking away from the negotiations out of a concern there would be no meaningful ingress of cash for whatever they could offer. Either way, as the article states this isnt about Covid its about Malaria and other infectious diseases that can be cured through the same novel approach. diseases for which a cure just isnt in the financial interest of western Pharma giants.