The drug company Moderna created its Covid-19 vaccine with the help of taxpayer dollars. Who gets the patents? And so who gets to decide who manufactures the drug and what it costs? If Moderna gets the patents, then we might worry about its profit incentives getting in the way of serving public health — of providing widespread access at low cost. But if the government gets the patents and sets the price low, then we might worry about drug companies having little incentive to create anything with federal funding, thus harming the government’s ability to direct research for the public good.
