I think them and Moderna turned the money down because they'd have to share the patent with the government. Trump offered them money, they didn't take it.
Putting reasonable price caps on critical medications would work nicely as well. I am not sure putting full control of all medications in the hands of politicians would work out too well either.
They just want to line their pockets. At lot of this stuff they don't even pay the research on, or did so long ago (like insulin) that they recouped the cost many times over.