Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice and David Lim. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Eli | Email Lauren President JOE BIDEN owes much of his success in beating back the Covid crisis to the highly effective vaccines manufactured by drug maker Moderna. But when Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) lit into Moderna’s CEO at a congressional hearing Wednesday, few in Biden’s administration rushed to the company’s defense. The White House’s relationship with Moderna has deteriorated dramatically over the last two years, marring what should have been one of the most successful public-private partnerships in U.S. history, four people with knowledge of the matter told West Wing Playbook. The two sides fought repeatedly over the price the government should pay for Moderna’s vaccines. They also clashed over the company’s responsibility to ensure that low-income people in the U.S. and abroad have access to the shots. Inside the administration, Biden officials openly complained about Moderna’s hardball negotiation tactics and characterized its representatives as difficult to deal with. “Moderna was always slow — and occasionally highly arrogant,” said one of the people with knowledge of the matter. “They don’t always get it.” A spokesperson defended Moderna's work during the pandemic, saying in a statement that “we value our relationship with the U.S. government" and would look for future opportunities to collaborate. CEO STÉPHANE BANCEL in his congressional testimony thanked the government for its support, and said out of appreciation it had provided its vaccines so far at a "discount" — though he noted "we were under no obligation to do so." A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. At the center of the White House’s disputes with Moderna is a disagreement over how indebted the company should be to the government for help it got in developing the Covid vaccine. Moderna received an estimated $1.7 billion in federal funds to accelerate the creation of its initial shot. The resulting vaccine offered the U.S. a path out of the pandemic — and represented Moderna’s first and only working product. The company has since recorded more than $36 billion in sales. Bancel's own net worth is estimated at $4.7 billion. Yet despite the government’s investment, Biden officials say Moderna has barely reciprocated in kind. In one episode in 2021, after the president vowed to make the U.S. an “arsenal of vaccines” for the world, Moderna resisted repeated overtures to commit additional doses to help lower-income countries. The administration eventually went public with the battle. “We expect that Moderna will step up as a company,” DAVID KESSLER, the then-chief science officer for the Covid response, said during an October 2021 global vaccination panel. “Failure to do that would be unconscionable in my view.” Moderna maintained throughout that it had limited capacity and needed to fulfill existing commitments first. The company eventually pledged to send more doses, though by the time they were ready to ship, the organizations charged with distribution to lower-income countries declined the vaccine over lack of demand and storage capabilities. A spokesperson said Moderna was ultimately forced to write down all the costs related to the declined donation. But Biden officials came away convinced Moderna’s initial reluctance was at least partly because it meant selling doses at a lower price. The administration’s difficulties with Moderna resurfaced last summer, as health officials began finalizing plans for updated Covid vaccines. The administration initially wanted to announce its purchase of new shots from Moderna and competitor Pfizer at the same time, two of the people with knowledge of the matter said. But Moderna initially demanded a far higher price than Pfizer, drawing out negotiations and forcing officials to scrap the joint rollout. Further frustrating federal negotiators, Moderna at one point also pressured them to purchase a vaccine that it had already made to target Covid’s original Omicron strain — even though health officials wanted shots tailored to fight more recent versions of the Omicron variant. Moderna eventually relented. Those run-ins have left Biden officials with little sympathy for Moderna amid rising scrutiny over its plans to hike the price of its Covid vaccine by as much as 400 percent when it hits the private market. During Wednesday's hearing, Bancel defended the price and reiterated his earlier pledge that uninsured people will get free access to the vaccine. But more than a month after making that promise, he still did not offer details on how exactly he plans to fulfill it. “It’s irritating, because they play games all the time,” said one senior administration official. “We should all just act like adults.” MESSAGE US — Are you STÉPHANE BANCEL? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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