5 ms·

US declares support for patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines

18 points by ethanpil 5y ago

throwawaysea 5y ago
Or put another way, the Biden administration supports the theft of intellectual property belonging to some of the most innovative companies of the millennium, harming their financial futures (https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/1390023742194061312 https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/139002374219406131...), and discouraging future biotech innovation in America. Oh and also no one will be able to make these vaccines at scale before Pfizer and Moderna have doses available for the entire global population anyways. The profit incentive matters, greatly, and Biden should have asked those other countries to make purchases from these vaccine manufacturers and asked them to source ingredients to help them speed up, instead of robbing them of their core assets.
- ashneo76 5y ago
  Or to put it other away, let companies make money off of people in a pandemic. This is patent on the vaccine, not the research and the methods to get there.
- h0l0cube 5y ago
  Or more like: the production capacity of the vaccine makers have been exhausted and they've made all the money they can from back orders to wealthy countries, and its just bad PR to withhold on covid meds to poorer nations. It's only rich countries that can afford the vaccine that have been opposed to waiving the patent, until maybe now: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuiX6-dXMAIsT7_?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuiX6-dXMAIsT7_?format=jpg&name=...
  - conqueso 5y ago
    what does the graphic represent?
    - dmichulke 5y ago
      It has been seen in the CEO's office of a big pharma company and the title is "All money extracted?" /s
    - h0l0cube 5y ago
      Sorry, it's a chart of all countries that support parent waivers for vaccines, not including any recent moves by the Biden administration
refurb 5y ago
My cynical take after having worked close to the industry: - this was not done without some level of agreement from the companies affected - other companies can use the IP, if they can make it work (major challenge with the mRNA vaccines) - for the mRNA vaccines this will have little to no impact; other companies can use the IP but it will take a year or more before they can start producing vaccines, and by then we’ll be onto v2.0 - the IP holders will enter into licensing agreements before any IP is broken (in exchange for technical help). Companies won’t miss out on much revenue since these werent priority markets anyways Basically the manufacturers will keep the wealthy western markets to themselves where all the profit is while gaining PR by opening up more access for developing countries

18 points by ethanpil 5y ago

Or put another way, the Biden administration supports the theft of intellectual property belonging to some of the most innovative companies of the millennium, harming their financial futures (https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/1390023742194061312 https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/139002374219406131...), and discouraging future biotech innovation in America. Oh and also no one will be able to make these vaccines at scale before Pfizer and Moderna have doses available for the entire global population anyways. The profit incentive matters, greatly, and Biden should have asked those other countries to make purchases from these vaccine manufacturers and asked them to source ingredients to help them speed up, instead of robbing them of their core assets.

ashneo76 5y ago
Or to put it other away, let companies make money off of people in a pandemic. This is patent on the vaccine, not the research and the methods to get there.
h0l0cube 5y ago
Or more like: the production capacity of the vaccine makers have been exhausted and they've made all the money they can from back orders to wealthy countries, and its just bad PR to withhold on covid meds to poorer nations. It's only rich countries that can afford the vaccine that have been opposed to waiving the patent, until maybe now: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuiX6-dXMAIsT7_?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuiX6-dXMAIsT7_?format=jpg&name=...
- conqueso 5y ago
  what does the graphic represent?
  - dmichulke 5y ago
    It has been seen in the CEO's office of a big pharma company and the title is "All money extracted?" /s
  - h0l0cube 5y ago
    Sorry, it's a chart of all countries that support parent waivers for vaccines, not including any recent moves by the Biden administration

refurb 5y ago

My cynical take after having worked close to the industry: - this was not done without some level of agreement from the companies affected - other companies can use the IP, if they can make it work (major challenge with the mRNA vaccines) - for the mRNA vaccines this will have little to no impact; other companies can use the IP but it will take a year or more before they can start producing vaccines, and by then we’ll be onto v2.0 - the IP holders will enter into licensing agreements before any IP is broken (in exchange for technical help). Companies won’t miss out on much revenue since these werent priority markets anyways Basically the manufacturers will keep the wealthy western markets to themselves where all the profit is while gaining PR by opening up more access for developing countries