Very much human nature to want your drug or research to be the one that saves mankind,not some other person's. The rivalry between Salk and Sabin during the last pandemic of polio was bitter. It just ended 70 years later with the WHO adopting the use of both vaccines together as being the best.

Big Pharma kept looking at Covid19 as being "tricky" where nothing works meaning nothing from their own shelf was effective. It also means, do everything in your power to undermine everyone else.