5 ms·

I'm amazed at the price here. $1k for 500 doses, and the author stated in the comments that they could have saved a lot more per dose if they bought in bulk. I

by aqme28 6y ago

I'm amazed at the price here. $1k for 500 doses, and the author stated in the comments that they could have saved a lot more per dose if they bought in bulk. It seems like a failure of the system that no one is trying for FDA approval or industrialization.

goatcode 6y ago
> FDA approval Of what? Edit: I get it now, sorry. I think FDA approval would bump up the price quite a bit.
palcu 6y ago
This Lesswrong thread has a good discussion about the subject. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine?commentId=JvegGTbGe28q868yG https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vac...
fredgrott 6y ago
it's not you are implying.. they use peptide..real vaccines use mRNA thus more effective than this one at say about 10% effectiveness.. Sorry for being brief as it would take a more in depth hour explanation of why the difference in effectiveness.. CDC had a recent article on the differences between this approach and the approach they and pharms chose namely mRNA
- raylad 6y ago
  >real vaccines use mRNA thus more effective than this one at say about 10% effectiveness.. Not true. Novavax is just peptides and is 96% effective against the original Wuhan covid-19 strain.
  - sct202 6y ago
    Novavax is growing whole modified spike proteins and sticking a dozen of them on to a nanoparticle. The article mentions their peptide is only a small fraction of the size of the spike protein.
hannob 6y ago
The prices for Astrazeneca vaccines are within the same range. There are also efforts for some simple to produce vaccines underway, it's just not the ones you'll likely see used widely in industrialized countries. An example is the chinese Coronavac vaccine. Though keep in mind making vaccines isn't just producing them, it's also running trials. It pretty much doesn't matter how cheap your production is, it will hardly affect the cost of the trial. And after all they're there so you actually know whether your vaccine works - and that part certainly shouldn't be skipped.
GuB-42 6y ago
They couldn't have bought in bulk "The only unusual hiccup was an email about customs restrictions on COVID-related peptides. Apparently the company was not allowed to send us 9 mg in one vial, but could send us two vials of 4.5 mg each for each peptide." The big problems with COVID vaccines is making sure they are safe and effective, and logistics. The author doesn't do any of these. There is a scale difference of 7 orders of magnitude compared to what we need. And he is taking risks that would be unreasonable for a commercial vaccine and efficiency is "let's see if it does something". It is an experiment and it has scientific value, maybe some of the mainstream vaccine candidates started out like this. But it cannot be compared to current widespread vaccination efforts. As for the money, it is a common fallacy to think that throwing money at a problem will solve it. Same as an often seen argument "it will take $X billion to end world hunger". World hunger is solved with food, not money, people don't eat money. On a small scale, you just have to go to the grocery store and spend money to feed a starving person. On a large scale there simply not enough food available unless we do some major changes regarding agriculture and distribution, throwing in money will just cause price inflation. Same thing with vaccines.
- readams 6y ago
  Food supply is not the problem with world hunger. There's more than enough food to go around, and if there weren't that's actually a problem that money would solve very well. The problem is getting the food to the people regardless of circumstance, such as war, repressive regimes, natural disasters, and other problems. Vaccines are similar: vaccinating the world will be logistically very very hard. But vaccinating first-world countries is a lot easier, and supply of vaccine in rich countries absolutely is a problem that can be solved with more money and resources. The fact that we've had so much trouble solving it is a political problem.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rsynnott 6y ago
The EU's paying around 2 euro per dose of AstraZeneca (and about 15 euro per dose of Pfizer). That's on the low end, but no-one's really paying more than twice that. And those vaccines have the great benefit that there is actual evidence that they do something.

by aqme28 6y ago

goatcode 6y ago

> FDA approval Of what? Edit: I get it now, sorry. I think FDA approval would bump up the price quite a bit.

palcu 6y ago

This Lesswrong thread has a good discussion about the subject. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vaccine?commentId=JvegGTbGe28q868yG https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vac...

fredgrott 6y ago

it's not you are implying.. they use peptide..real vaccines use mRNA thus more effective than this one at say about 10% effectiveness.. Sorry for being brief as it would take a more in depth hour explanation of why the difference in effectiveness.. CDC had a recent article on the differences between this approach and the approach they and pharms chose namely mRNA

raylad 6y ago
>real vaccines use mRNA thus more effective than this one at say about 10% effectiveness.. Not true. Novavax is just peptides and is 96% effective against the original Wuhan covid-19 strain.
- sct202 6y ago
  Novavax is growing whole modified spike proteins and sticking a dozen of them on to a nanoparticle. The article mentions their peptide is only a small fraction of the size of the spike protein.

hannob 6y ago

The prices for Astrazeneca vaccines are within the same range. There are also efforts for some simple to produce vaccines underway, it's just not the ones you'll likely see used widely in industrialized countries. An example is the chinese Coronavac vaccine. Though keep in mind making vaccines isn't just producing them, it's also running trials. It pretty much doesn't matter how cheap your production is, it will hardly affect the cost of the trial. And after all they're there so you actually know whether your vaccine works - and that part certainly shouldn't be skipped.

GuB-42 6y ago

They couldn't have bought in bulk "The only unusual hiccup was an email about customs restrictions on COVID-related peptides. Apparently the company was not allowed to send us 9 mg in one vial, but could send us two vials of 4.5 mg each for each peptide." The big problems with COVID vaccines is making sure they are safe and effective, and logistics. The author doesn't do any of these. There is a scale difference of 7 orders of magnitude compared to what we need. And he is taking risks that would be unreasonable for a commercial vaccine and efficiency is "let's see if it does something". It is an experiment and it has scientific value, maybe some of the mainstream vaccine candidates started out like this. But it cannot be compared to current widespread vaccination efforts. As for the money, it is a common fallacy to think that throwing money at a problem will solve it. Same as an often seen argument "it will take $X billion to end world hunger". World hunger is solved with food, not money, people don't eat money. On a small scale, you just have to go to the grocery store and spend money to feed a starving person. On a large scale there simply not enough food available unless we do some major changes regarding agriculture and distribution, throwing in money will just cause price inflation. Same thing with vaccines.

readams 6y ago
Food supply is not the problem with world hunger. There's more than enough food to go around, and if there weren't that's actually a problem that money would solve very well. The problem is getting the food to the people regardless of circumstance, such as war, repressive regimes, natural disasters, and other problems. Vaccines are similar: vaccinating the world will be logistically very very hard. But vaccinating first-world countries is a lot easier, and supply of vaccine in rich countries absolutely is a problem that can be solved with more money and resources. The fact that we've had so much trouble solving it is a political problem.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rsynnott 6y ago

The EU's paying around 2 euro per dose of AstraZeneca (and about 15 euro per dose of Pfizer). That's on the low end, but no-one's really paying more than twice that. And those vaccines have the great benefit that there is actual evidence that they do something.