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Moderna’s refusal to hand over key intellectual property behind its COVID-19 vaccine development to China has collapsed talks of a sale in China, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company will hand over its mRNA vaccine recipe over commercial and safety concerns, citing officials involved in negotiations that took place in 2020-2021. It declined China’s request to do so. Still “enthusiastic” to sell products to China.
The company has “abandoned” its entry into the Chinese market. China demanded that the technology be handed over as a condition of domestic sales.
China has not approved a foreign COVID-19 vaccine and relies on several domestically developed vaccines. In September, Moderna’s chief medical officer, Paul Burton, said the company was keen to work with China to ship an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine to China.
According to individuals involved in the negotiations that took place between 2020 and 2021, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company declined China’s request to hand over the recipe for its mRNA vaccine due to commercial and safety concerns, adding that the vaccine maker is still “eager” to sell the product to China.
“We would be very interested in working with China if they felt the need for a vaccine,” Burton said at a press conference in Asia. But we are very open to it.”