From a US perspective, it is a surprising fact that in spite of Trump's desire that the US would lead the way on vaccine research, the Biontech vaccine manufactured by Pfizer was developed in Germany and the Oxford vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca was developed in the UK.
When Trump took credit for the first vaccines, he was claiming for himself and his own administration the basic science and initial development work done in Germany and the UK and the further development work undertaken by Pfizer [not part of the USG operation called warp speed] and AstraZeneca. No big surprise there.
And no loss of credit to Pfizer, which has apparently done a good job. But its role was not so much the basic science [done by the famous German-Turkish couple in Mainz in Germany] as the testing, manufacture and distribution of Biontech's vaccine. Unfortunately for the Germans, they seem only to have a best efforts contract securing the supply of their own vaccine through the EU's contract with Pfizer.
Merck wanted to perform a similar role to Pfizer's with the Oxford group but was turned down in part because it failed to commit to guarantee the UK's supply. So we know the UK rejected the best efforts language that the EU accepted. We chose Astra Zeneca as the distributor of the Oxford vaccine partly because it was willing to guarantee the UK's supply of a drug initially developed by Sarah Gilbert at Oxford University. And perhaps in part because it was willing to distribute the drug at cost.
Noticeably, Merck is not part of the rollout of a vaccine at present. And the EU is enraged that they are not first in line via their tardily-drawn best efforts contract in the procurement of a vaccine imagined and made in the UK and sold at cost as stipulated by the UK government [ie the UK's goodwill is written into the price the EU is paying for the AZ drug].
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