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You've already given them a lot of money. The German government gave BioNtech $445 million dollars in a grant last year alone. It's not unreasonable to be conce

You've already given them a lot of money. The German government gave BioNtech $445 million dollars in a grant last year alone. It's not unreasonable to be concerned that a small number of pharma companies are trying to generate massive profits when they basically have the entire world hostage.

kolinko 6y ago
Last year grant was when the technology was already ready and with initial results - it was to scale up the production. But the funding of the previous 10 years was 1.5B, from private people who also took way more risk.
timdaub 6y ago
From your choice of words one can see that you judge pharma concerns for "generating massive profits" by "taking the world hostage". But nobody has taken anyone for hostage. You're speculating. And it's a gigantic global health crysis. Nothing bad with pharma solving covid.
- noahtallen 6y ago
  Nothing bad with pharma solving covid, but surely something bad with pharma solving covid using public money and then not releasing the solution to the public without taking another big fee. (Hypothetically — I’m not saying that’s what happened since I know so little. I’m pointing out a scenario in which pharma would be bad.) And, I would suggest more broadly that profit doesn’t equate with “morally good”. One could argue that under utilitarianism, the ethically “right” thing to do is to give away vaccines, or at least charge only the manufacturing price. Hell, even a dollar per vaccine across even 50% of the world’s population is a ton of money.
  - timdaub 6y ago
    Your type of reasoning is the exact problem that we have in politics. Single people think they know better than this genius swarm intelligence that is the market. And then they make stupid rules for everyone. It doesn't matter what is good or bad. Right or wrong. Only the outcome matters. And arguably given the content of the original post, the outcome right now with politics is bad.
    - _Microft 6y ago
      Markets don't just magically work better. Have a look at the harm that fossil fuels can do simply because the costs of these damages were not priced into the cost of fossil fuels.
      - timdaub 6y ago
        Unexpected costs of fossil fuels that cause climate change is a historical failure of regulation (politics) and not markets. Markets are not magic. They're just a tool.
        _Microft 6y ago
        In this case I do not understand what you are arguing for (or against). "Markets" themselves are the easy part. Regulating them properly is the really difficult part.
insert_coin 6y ago
Sure, in an ideal world. The truth is pharma companies had them over a barrel and took advantage of it. For all these years scientists were alerting politicians and the public in general the risk of a pandemic was very real and demanded more attention and resources but were not heard, and now that it came to pass countries do not have any other choice but to pay twice; for the development and for the product. So sure, in an ideal world, with a population that respected science and not belittled scientists, better prepared countries would have had the advantage to negotiate better pricing because they would have been expecting it. Sadly we do not live in that world.
maxerickson 6y ago
That's $6 a person. The consumer surplus on vaccines is so incredibly large that it's all just a silly discussion. Pfizer making $40 of profit (or whatever) on a vaccine worth thousands of dollars just isn't interesting. Higher prices make it harder for lower income countries, but you are claiming it's offensive that they would capture any of the value of the product, even in places where the 'high' price is not an issue.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
timdaub 6y ago
Turns out Biontech had good reasons to claim 50EUR per dose: https://m.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/biontech-wehrt-sich-gegen-wucherpreis-berichte-17207979.html https://m.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/biontech-we...

kolinko 6y ago

Last year grant was when the technology was already ready and with initial results - it was to scale up the production. But the funding of the previous 10 years was 1.5B, from private people who also took way more risk.

timdaub 6y ago

From your choice of words one can see that you judge pharma concerns for "generating massive profits" by "taking the world hostage". But nobody has taken anyone for hostage. You're speculating. And it's a gigantic global health crysis. Nothing bad with pharma solving covid.

noahtallen 6y ago
Nothing bad with pharma solving covid, but surely something bad with pharma solving covid using public money and then not releasing the solution to the public without taking another big fee. (Hypothetically — I’m not saying that’s what happened since I know so little. I’m pointing out a scenario in which pharma would be bad.) And, I would suggest more broadly that profit doesn’t equate with “morally good”. One could argue that under utilitarianism, the ethically “right” thing to do is to give away vaccines, or at least charge only the manufacturing price. Hell, even a dollar per vaccine across even 50% of the world’s population is a ton of money.
- timdaub 6y ago
  Your type of reasoning is the exact problem that we have in politics. Single people think they know better than this genius swarm intelligence that is the market. And then they make stupid rules for everyone. It doesn't matter what is good or bad. Right or wrong. Only the outcome matters. And arguably given the content of the original post, the outcome right now with politics is bad.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    Markets don't just magically work better. Have a look at the harm that fossil fuels can do simply because the costs of these damages were not priced into the cost of fossil fuels.
    - timdaub 6y ago
      Unexpected costs of fossil fuels that cause climate change is a historical failure of regulation (politics) and not markets. Markets are not magic. They're just a tool.
      - _Microft 6y ago
        In this case I do not understand what you are arguing for (or against). "Markets" themselves are the easy part. Regulating them properly is the really difficult part.

insert_coin 6y ago

Sure, in an ideal world. The truth is pharma companies had them over a barrel and took advantage of it. For all these years scientists were alerting politicians and the public in general the risk of a pandemic was very real and demanded more attention and resources but were not heard, and now that it came to pass countries do not have any other choice but to pay twice; for the development and for the product. So sure, in an ideal world, with a population that respected science and not belittled scientists, better prepared countries would have had the advantage to negotiate better pricing because they would have been expecting it. Sadly we do not live in that world.

maxerickson 6y ago

That's $6 a person. The consumer surplus on vaccines is so incredibly large that it's all just a silly discussion. Pfizer making $40 of profit (or whatever) on a vaccine worth thousands of dollars just isn't interesting. Higher prices make it harder for lower income countries, but you are claiming it's offensive that they would capture any of the value of the product, even in places where the 'high' price is not an issue.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

timdaub 6y ago

Turns out Biontech had good reasons to claim 50EUR per dose: https://m.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/biontech-wehrt-sich-gegen-wucherpreis-berichte-17207979.html https://m.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/biontech-we...