*

House committee asks Pfizer for information on alleged

comments

that company delayed trial results of COVID-19 vaccine

*

Pfizer denies delaying vaccine trial results for election

*

Executive says comments were misinterpreted

*

Judiciary Committee seeks interview with exec on

allegations

By Ahmed Aboulenein and Michael Erman

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers on

Thursday asked Pfizer Inc ( PFE ) for information on alleged

comments by a former executive suggesting its research

executives intentionally delayed clinical trial results of its

COVID-19 vaccine to influence the 2020 presidential election.

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee wrote in a

letter to Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla that it is

looking into the comments allegedly made by Philip Dormitzer,

the company's former global head of vaccine research, who helped

oversee development of the COVID shot during the first Trump

administration. Dormitzer has said his comments were

misinterpreted.

Pfizer, working with Germany's BioNTech, was the first

drugmaker to show successful results for a COVID vaccine at the

height of the pandemic. The company began to share its trial

results on Nov. 9, 2020, just days after Joe Biden won the

presidential election against President Donald Trump.

Pfizer has long denied any relation between the timing of

its vaccine results announcement and the U.S. election. The

alleged comments made by Dormitzer were first reported by the

Wall Street Journal in March.

"My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to

get the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization at the very first

possible moment. Any other interpretation of my comments about

the pace of the vaccine's development would be incorrect,"

Dormitzer told Reuters in March.

Dormitzer left Pfizer for a new job at rival drugmaker GSK

Plc ( GSK ) in 2021. The judiciary committee said it had been

informed by GSK that a "visibly upset" Dormitzer requested the

company let him move to Canada in November 2024, shortly after

Trump was re-elected. Dormitzer had told colleagues at GSK he

feared being investigated by the new Trump administration,

according to the committee's letter.

"GSK further informed the Committee that Dr. Dormitzer had

told GSK employees that 'in late 2020, the three most senior

people in Pfizer R&D were involved in a decision to deliberately

slow down clinical testing so that it would not be complete

prior to the results of the presidential election that year,'"

the committee's letter to Bourla said.

"Dr. Dormitzer represented to GSK that Pfizer's CEO was not

aware of the delay," the committee said in a press release.

Pfizer spokesperson Amy Rose said the drugmaker had received

the letter "asking about allegations made in a Wall Street

Journal story, and we will respond directly to the Committee."

"The COVID-19 vaccine development process was driven by

science and guided by the U.S. FDA back in 2020," said Rose.

"Theories to the contrary are simply untrue and being

manufactured."

The judiciary committee has sent a similar letter to

Dormitzer seeking information about his alleged remarks and

asking the scientist appear for an interview. He was not

immediately available for comment. GSK declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal said that GSK had reported

Dormitzer's alleged comments to federal prosecutors in New York.

The newspaper's report prompted the House committee to

investigate the matter.