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I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are lite

I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. I want creating a successful vaccine to be a bigger deal economically than creating a worldwide social network. Who is doing a better job of increasing human well-being, Facebook or Moderna? The stock of these companies dropped on this announcement. Long term this kind of patent waiver will drive investment and at some level smart people from these companies.

wolframhempel 6y ago
I absolutely agree. What confuses me is that removing patent protection strikes me as the strongest weapon in the arsenal. Before doing that, wouldn't it be possible to enforce sublicensing or other such contracts that would allow third party manufacturers to produce the vaccine whilst still ensuring revenue for its patent holders?
johnchristopher 6y ago
> I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. And it took a global pandemic for pharma to realize it so maybe they aren't totally up to the task. And it seems the consensus is that states provided much needed money to turn mrna vaccines into a real thing.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  no, it is that state money make faster. try many alternative at once with promise of some payment even in failure, run trial in parallel, these thing. same result would have reached, just taking more time. or maybe they would find private investing, we are not knowing.
- DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
  I don't agree. I think it just sped things up.
bdibs 6y ago
Moderna themselves have pledged (temporarily) not to enforce their COVID-19 patents anyways, so I’m not sure who you’re defending. If McDonalds gave out their hamburger recipe today, I don’t think they’d be on the brink of bankruptcy tomorrow. I would imagine stopping a global pandemic is in the best interest of everyone, including the creators of any vaccine. They’ve made a killing so far and will continue to make plenty of money, patents or not.
yokaze 6y ago
> I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. That is quite hyperbolic, because at worst it will reduce profits, but hardly "kill" them. > I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. The incentive to invest is the chance of future profits. Those still exists, as the technology has a lot of use-cases beyond covid-19 vaccines. The vaccine is just the show-case of that. > The stock of these companies dropped on this announcement. Short-term developments are hardly a good indicator for future development. > Long term this kind of patent waiver will drive investment and at some level smart people from these companies. You really think, losing the ability to profit more from a, hopefully, once in a century event will determine, if someone invests in something in the future? And by that not being able to profit from the technology in all the other areas they can improve? I really doubt that.
- refurb 6y ago
  Really? Having the rules change in the middle of the game won’t affect investments? I mean, what if the next company comes up with a cure for AIDS. Are they confident the IP won’t be broken either?
  - yokaze 6y ago
    > Having the rules change in the middle of the game won’t affect investments? The rules of the game change all the time. Every business plan has to take into consideration the risks/benefits of possible regulatory changes. And yes, changes will affect investment. But the hypothesis is, it will drive investment away to the extent that it will "kill the goose...". I would phrase it less hyperbolic as "in a significant way". To reiterate: We are talking here (up to now) a about once in a life-time event. And that is both the Covid crisis, as well as being able to profit from. > I mean, what if the next company comes up with a cure for AIDS. Are they confident the IP won’t be broken either? So the classical slippery slope argument. The whole point why governments are bringing the option on the table is, because it is an exceptional event. So, it doesn't translate to AIDS/HIV. Will people believe that? That's anyones guess. Do you believe anyone will forgo possible profits from the whole range of possibilities of treatments based on mRNA because of that precedent? I seriously doubt that. I do not see those risks, but then I also do not see much the benefit either. It isn't like just the patents are the limiting factor, and you could ramp up a production of those vaccines from one day to the other.
celticninja 6y ago
There were plenty of agreements/contracts drawn up with nation states that meant they had definite buyers and a definite income from those contracts. Their R&D costs were assured of a return due to the install base. They are already being rewarded financially, they weren't making and distributing these out of the goodness of their hearts. So they dont need to become fabulously wealthy, they just need to turn a decent profit. Which they are doing. And right now I would suggest that AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna are 3 of the most well known pharma companies, because they were first to market with working vaccines, there are plenty of pharma companies that tried, failed and thus you dont even know their names. So those successful firms are already being rewarded. No need to call for outsized returns for these companies.
neolog 6y ago
> I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy They were already fabulously wealthy. Moderna alone had $232 million revenue last year.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > Moderna alone had $232 million revenue last year. That is nowhere near fabulously wealthy, especially as it is revenue and not profit.
- refurb 6y ago
  Net loss was $747 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $514 million for the year ended December 31, 2019. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-reports-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2020-financial\ https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...
  - neolog 6y ago
    Imagine being so rich you can lose a billion dollars under normal operation.
    - refurb 6y ago
      You know how I know you don’t understand how R&D works?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - neolog 6y ago
        Fair enough, for Moderna. Though my argument works better for J&J's numbers [1] with >$10B net income most years. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JNJ/johnson-johnson/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JNJ/johnson-johnso...

wolframhempel 6y ago

I absolutely agree. What confuses me is that removing patent protection strikes me as the strongest weapon in the arsenal. Before doing that, wouldn't it be possible to enforce sublicensing or other such contracts that would allow third party manufacturers to produce the vaccine whilst still ensuring revenue for its patent holders?

johnchristopher 6y ago

> I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. And it took a global pandemic for pharma to realize it so maybe they aren't totally up to the task. And it seems the consensus is that states provided much needed money to turn mrna vaccines into a real thing.

da_big_ghey 6y ago
no, it is that state money make faster. try many alternative at once with promise of some payment even in failure, run trial in parallel, these thing. same result would have reached, just taking more time. or maybe they would find private investing, we are not knowing.
DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
I don't agree. I think it just sped things up.

bdibs 6y ago

Moderna themselves have pledged (temporarily) not to enforce their COVID-19 patents anyways, so I’m not sure who you’re defending. If McDonalds gave out their hamburger recipe today, I don’t think they’d be on the brink of bankruptcy tomorrow. I would imagine stopping a global pandemic is in the best interest of everyone, including the creators of any vaccine. They’ve made a killing so far and will continue to make plenty of money, patents or not.

yokaze 6y ago

> I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. That is quite hyperbolic, because at worst it will reduce profits, but hardly "kill" them. > I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. The incentive to invest is the chance of future profits. Those still exists, as the technology has a lot of use-cases beyond covid-19 vaccines. The vaccine is just the show-case of that. > The stock of these companies dropped on this announcement. Short-term developments are hardly a good indicator for future development. > Long term this kind of patent waiver will drive investment and at some level smart people from these companies. You really think, losing the ability to profit more from a, hopefully, once in a century event will determine, if someone invests in something in the future? And by that not being able to profit from the technology in all the other areas they can improve? I really doubt that.

refurb 6y ago
Really? Having the rules change in the middle of the game won’t affect investments? I mean, what if the next company comes up with a cure for AIDS. Are they confident the IP won’t be broken either?
- yokaze 6y ago
  > Having the rules change in the middle of the game won’t affect investments? The rules of the game change all the time. Every business plan has to take into consideration the risks/benefits of possible regulatory changes. And yes, changes will affect investment. But the hypothesis is, it will drive investment away to the extent that it will "kill the goose...". I would phrase it less hyperbolic as "in a significant way". To reiterate: We are talking here (up to now) a about once in a life-time event. And that is both the Covid crisis, as well as being able to profit from. > I mean, what if the next company comes up with a cure for AIDS. Are they confident the IP won’t be broken either? So the classical slippery slope argument. The whole point why governments are bringing the option on the table is, because it is an exceptional event. So, it doesn't translate to AIDS/HIV. Will people believe that? That's anyones guess. Do you believe anyone will forgo possible profits from the whole range of possibilities of treatments based on mRNA because of that precedent? I seriously doubt that. I do not see those risks, but then I also do not see much the benefit either. It isn't like just the patents are the limiting factor, and you could ramp up a production of those vaccines from one day to the other.

celticninja 6y ago

There were plenty of agreements/contracts drawn up with nation states that meant they had definite buyers and a definite income from those contracts. Their R&D costs were assured of a return due to the install base. They are already being rewarded financially, they weren't making and distributing these out of the goodness of their hearts. So they dont need to become fabulously wealthy, they just need to turn a decent profit. Which they are doing. And right now I would suggest that AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna are 3 of the most well known pharma companies, because they were first to market with working vaccines, there are plenty of pharma companies that tried, failed and thus you dont even know their names. So those successful firms are already being rewarded. No need to call for outsized returns for these companies.

neolog 6y ago

> I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy They were already fabulously wealthy. Moderna alone had $232 million revenue last year.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> Moderna alone had $232 million revenue last year. That is nowhere near fabulously wealthy, especially as it is revenue and not profit.
refurb 6y ago
Net loss was $747 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $514 million for the year ended December 31, 2019. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-reports-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2020-financial\ https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...
- neolog 6y ago
  Imagine being so rich you can lose a billion dollars under normal operation.
  - refurb 6y ago
    You know how I know you don’t understand how R&D works?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - neolog 6y ago
      Fair enough, for Moderna. Though my argument works better for J&J's numbers [1] with >$10B net income most years. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JNJ/johnson-johnson/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JNJ/johnson-johnso...