Moderna has attached three COVID-19 related contracts as exhibits to its SEC 10-Q form for the quarterly period ending in October 2020.
The first is the contract between the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Moderna for the development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-Moderna COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, through to licensure by the United States Food and Drug Administration, and for scaling up manufacture. After KEI wrote to BARDA, a component of HHS, asking BARDA to enforce a term of this contract requiring Moderna to disclose how the work on the vaccine was financed, Moderna stated in a press release that BARDA is funding 100 percent of the work under this contract. The 10-Q attaches the original contract as well as amendments, one of which is part of a lawsuit filed by KEI in the United States District Court of the District of Columbia on October 16, 2020.
The next contract released by Moderna is an agreement between Moderna and Lonza, a company based in Switzerland. Under that contract, Lonza will provide large-scale manufacturing of the NIH-Moderna vaccine candidate.
The final contract released by Moderna is the supply agreement between the Army and Moderna in which the United States is advance purchasing at least 100 million doses of the vaccine candidate for $1.5 billion. This same contract was added to the HHS FOIA Library/ Electronic Reading Room on October 23, 2020.
Notably, while the documents released by Moderna contain heavy redactions, they are more transparent than the contracts released by the United States government. For example, in the supply agreement released by HHS, the U.S. government redacted items such as the unit prices in the contract, the total award of the agreement, and entire pages of information pertaining to topics such as what happens in Moderna cannot meet the United States’ supply needs. In an article published by NPR on October 24, 2020, KEI was quoted as stating that some of what had been redacted was, without a doubt, not confidential (the basis cited by the Army for withholding the information). The contract released by Moderna discloses the total award of the supply agreement, unit prices, details about the Contract Line Item Numbers (CLINS) and the provisions on what happens if Moderna does not ensure adequate supply. It is unclear what processes HHS and the Army followed in withholding information under the Freedom of Information Act, but information that is not customarily and actually treated confidentially by its source or is already in the public domain clearly is not confidential and may not be withheld under that exemption.
Especially considering the public’s massive investment in COVID-19 vaccines and treatments and the enormous public interest in ensuring that the products are affordable and supplied as widely as possible, as quickly as possible, there is no reason for withholding information from the contracts.
Three Moderna contracts
Moderna and HHS/BARDA
Contract No. 75A50120C00034, Development of mRNA Vaccine for SARS-CoV-2.
EX-10.1 2 exhibit101.htm EX-10.1
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285220000023/exhibit101.htm
Modernatx and Lonza
EX-10.2 3 lonzamodernagltafullye.htm EX-10.2
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285220000023/lonzamodernagltafullye.htm
Contract W911Qy20C0100, August 9, 2020
Modernatx, Defense Contract Management Agency
EX-10.3 4 exhibit103.htm EX-10.3
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285220000023/exhibit103.htm