But there is a big catch: Dr. Fauci would not be specific about which technologies will be licensed and could not say if Moderna’s powerful coronavirus vaccine — developed in partnership with N.I.H. scientists — would be among them, he said.
That is because the company and the government are locked in a bitter dispute over who deserves credit for inventing the central component of the vaccine, which grew out of a four-year collaboration between Moderna and the N.I.H., the government’s biomedical research agency. The N.I.H. has been in talks with Moderna for more than a year to try to resolve the disagreement, which has broad implications for the vaccine’s long-term distribution and billions of dollars in future profits.
Dr. Fauci said the negotiations are ongoing, but both he and Mr. Becerra strongly suggested that if the government wins that dispute and gains ownership of the crucial patent, it would work to include the Moderna technology in its offerings.
“President Biden has made it very clear that he wishes to assert all his authorities to make sure that we use everything at our disposal” to make medicines available to those who need them, Mr. Becerra said, adding that “it should be no surprise” that “we’re going to push the envelope where the law allows us.”
Dr. Fauci said, “I just would repeat, in principle — and you can take from it what you will — that in principle we have offered to license N.I.H.-owned technologies to the C-TAP for the purposes of the Medicines Patents Pool. So whatever it is that we can do, we will do.”