So someone decided to pay their protection money after all.

Could it be that Moderna threatened to pull all R&D and associated money from the US? …. Nah….

(Seriously though, they did threaten and it would have had a large economic impact. Pulling money is just an effective of a bribe as paying money)

Just to be clear, the FDA has only reversed its refusal to review the vaccine for approval; it hasn't been approved:

In an announcement Wednesday morning, Moderna said the FDA has now agreed to review its vaccine after the company held a formal (Type A) meeting with the FDA and proposed a change to the regulatory pathways used in the application.

Not a joke. The #2 guy at FDA was fired in December in a fee-for-approval bribery scheme.

$18B value, there are much bigger pharmas.

But BIOGEN successfully blackmailed the FDA in 2021 to approve an Alzheimer drug you never heard of because it never worked and killed many patients.

FDA has a corruption problem, and it's not just under Trump.