Pfizer’s often‐repeated statement that it invested ~ $2 billion and did not receive any government research funding to develop its vaccine paints an incomplete picture, because its partner BioNTech received $445 million in funding from the German government to assist with COVID‐19 vaccine development. BioNTech is now licensing the NIH’s patented pre‐fusion spike protein technology.
Sounds like some of the money they “invested” was spent on licensing a publicly funded patent.