An unnamed U.S. official reportedly hasn’t denied the accusations, according to Al Jazeera. "This story is wildly overplayed,” the official told the news source. “The US government has spoken with many [more than 25] companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from US investors."

"We will continue to talk to any company that claims to be able to help. And any solution found would be shared with the world," the official said. Florian von der Muelbe, CureVac’s co-founder, told Reuters the company was in the process of selecting two clinical trials last week and hopes to have an experimental vaccine available in June or July to go before regulators for human testing. CureVac said in a statement Al Jazeera obtained Sunday that the “company rejects current rumours of an acquisition" and that although the business has been in contact with several authorities and organizations around the world, it denies "allegations about offers for acquisition of the company or its technology."

Officials reported more than 3,000 cases of the coronavirus in the United States and at least 61 resulting deaths by Sunday, according to NBC News. Trump said in video MSNBC obtained earlier this month that after talking to pharmaceutical companies "we've asked them to accelerate whatever they're doing in terms of a vaccine.” After hearing the news of Trump’s proposal to CureVac, Karl Lauterbach, a health economics professor, tweeted a message that translates to: “The exclusive sale of a possible vaccine to the USA must be prevented by all means. Capitalism has limits. We also cannot continue to depend on pharmaceuticals from China and the USA. Our research policy needs a reversal”