What you suggested cannot be further from the truth. The paper that got her the Nobel was from 2005 (https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(05)00211-6, see also cited in https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/), and UPenn claimed in 2013 — at least 7 years later — that she would not be “of faculty quality” (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfizer-biontech).