5 ms·

Moderna already waved their rights last year [0]. But the production of such vaccines is not easy and I believe that an organization grows and learns as a whole

Moderna already waved their rights last year [0]. But the production of such vaccines is not easy and I believe that an organization grows and learns as a whole as a solution so complex is developed. Consequently it is not easy to replicate what they do. I think at best this puts a cap on the vaccine's price since "in theory" given enough financial incentive the vaccine can be reproduced. That's my theory, feel free to prove me wrong. Imho: If this becomes real, don't expect big benefits. I appreciate what Moderna did but forcing other companies to do the same may be overkill for little benefit and I wonder what the long term effect is on companies' willingness to focus on a vaccine for the next pandemic. Perhaps companies realize that waiving IP rights is good PR, or they can do it for parts of the process that is easier to scale or outsource to 3rd parties. What happens to startups that do find an easy to copy vaccine production process and they know their IP will be taken from them? I honestly don't know but I feel that they should be fairly compensated... But what's fair. IP is just so difficult. I wonder what a world without it would look like. More company secrets, that's for sure. [0] https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/statement-moderna-intellectual-property-matters-during-covid-19/ https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

akie 6y ago
All these interesting theoretical arguments while people are dying in droves... India was EXPORTING vaccine to the UK until not so very long ago. Maybe they don't have the capacity to produce the mRNA vaccines, but they most certainly have the capacity to produce viral vector vaccines such as AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson. I strongly believe it is our moral duty to buy-out or invalidate the IP of (at the very least) these viral vector vaccines lest even more people die unnecessarily, while we are having interesting theoretical armchair arguments from the comfort of our increasingly vaccinated western societies.
- teekert 6y ago
  I agree with you, this situation warrants a breaking of all our rules. And I hope that something good will come of it, other that then increased number of produced vaccines. I know it's theoretical, I'm just saying, perhaps it will not be all good. But we'll deal with that when we get to it. Maybe viral vaccines should be an organized governmental effort from now on. Coordinated by WHO or something.
- ChemSpider 6y ago
  But how will waiving the IP help India to produce more? They already have all the licenses they need. It is a resource constraint, not a license/IP issue. If US/UK would finally allow vaccine exports like the EU does, _that_ would help India.
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    I’m not sure I understand why we aren’t? In my area it seems there are now plenty of vaccine doses to go around now. Anyone can walk in to one of the various vaccine clinics set up by the county and get it. No appointment, no ID, no insurance needed. When I went they were practically begging me to spread the word to friends and family.
    - Kalium 6y ago
      At a time when the US has vaccinated under 50% of its population - https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/covid-vaccine-states-distribution-doses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/covid-va... - do you think it's possible that perhaps your area might not be a fully representative sample?
  - Kalium 6y ago
    I think you've hit it exactly. There's no reason to think that resolving IP concerns will speed up production and deployment in India. Problems there have more to do with the state of their logistical and healthcare infrastructure than the (very impressive) vaccine production capabilities of the Serum Institute of India. It's also maybe a little relevant that the Modi government didn't order nearly enough vaccines early enough.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    The US is finally allowing vaccine exports. The ban lifted May 1. It will take time to ramp up though.
    - ChemSpider 6y ago
      Unfortunately the defense production act is still active. Curevac for example reports production issues: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/curevac-says-mass-vaccine-rollout-thrown-into-doubt-by-us-restrictions-2021-05-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
- antibuddy 6y ago
  In India currently die ~2 people per 100k per week on Corona. In Germany it was over triple that in December. The total Corona mortality in India is also way way lower as in Germany (16.842/100k vs 100.35/100k). I am not sure that the moral panic is even justified.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    You'er basing that on official figures from a country which has cities whose healthcare systems collapsed. Makeshift funeral pyres in the middle of a city street don't happen in a country where something hasn't gone terribly wrong Delhi's official death rate of the last 7 days was 9 per 100k, and University of Michigan are estimating real rates at 2-5 times higher than that for India as a whole.
    - antibuddy 6y ago
      > Makeshift funeral pyres in the middle of a city street don't happen in a country where something hasn't gone terribly wrong The same was said in Germany/Saxony (crematoria capacity reached), however they plain omitted the fact that usually these were outsourced to Czech Republic, but borders were closed. Cherry-picking parts of the story but omitting others is so common that I am hesitant to take it as is. It would be certainly better to have overall mortality, so it would be easier to reason about the veracity of COVID mortality, however I am not convinced by obvious emotional manipulation. > Delhi's official death rate of the last 7 days was 9 per 100k, and University of Michigan are estimating real rates at 2-5 times higher than that for India as a whole. 9/100k/w is not very high for cities given they are drastically more affected by pandemics in general. 2-5 times is quite a big margin, but I would be interested in how they came to these numbers.
    - antibuddy 6y ago
      In Kerala the all-cause mortality decreased from 2019-2020[0] - something you could observe in Germany as well. Kerala is said to be more advanced than other states in India, however it lends some credence to the official numbers. [0]: https://health.kerala.gov.in/pdf/Technical-paper-All-Cause-Mortality-Kerala.pdf https://health.kerala.gov.in/pdf/Technical-paper-All-Cause-M...
- nevermindiguess 6y ago
  Imagine how much it would help to take your house away from you (without compensating you) to build that Highway. So many people would benefit from it. Perhaps even save lives by removing that dangerous crossing.
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> But the production of such vaccines is not easy Oh? " "Manufacturing mRNA vaccines is surprisingly straightforward. Compared to conventional vaccine production, mRNA factories are: * 99 - 99.9% smaller * 95 - 99.7% cheaper * 1,000% faster" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27061674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27061674 https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-is-surprisingly-straightforward-despite-what-bill-gates-thinks-222cffb686ee https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-i... https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/amp2.10060 https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/amp2....
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- magnio 6y ago
  From "Myths of Vaccine Manufacturing"[0] > These will be special-purpose bespoke machines, and if you ask other drug companies if they have one sitting around, the answer will be “Of course not”. This is not anything close to a traditional drug manufacturing process. And this is the single biggest reason why you cannot simply call up those “dozens” of other companies and ask them to shift their existing production over to making the mRNA vaccines. There are not dozens of companies who make DNA templates on the needed scale. There are definitely not dozens of companies who can make enough RNA. But most importantly, I believe that you can count on one hand the number of facilities who can make the critical lipid nanoparticles. Also see this article[1] which details the supply chain of mRNA vaccines as well as the bottleneck of lipid nanoparticle assembly. These mRNA vaccines also have strict requirements for storage/distribution, preventing them from wider usage. [0]: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/myths-of-vaccine-manufacturing https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/my... [1]: https://blog.jonasneubert.com/2021/01/10/exploring-the-supply-chain-of-the-pfizer-biontech-and-moderna-covid-19-vaccines/ https://blog.jonasneubert.com/2021/01/10/exploring-the-suppl...
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago

akie 6y ago

All these interesting theoretical arguments while people are dying in droves... India was EXPORTING vaccine to the UK until not so very long ago. Maybe they don't have the capacity to produce the mRNA vaccines, but they most certainly have the capacity to produce viral vector vaccines such as AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson. I strongly believe it is our moral duty to buy-out or invalidate the IP of (at the very least) these viral vector vaccines lest even more people die unnecessarily, while we are having interesting theoretical armchair arguments from the comfort of our increasingly vaccinated western societies.

teekert 6y ago
I agree with you, this situation warrants a breaking of all our rules. And I hope that something good will come of it, other that then increased number of produced vaccines. I know it's theoretical, I'm just saying, perhaps it will not be all good. But we'll deal with that when we get to it. Maybe viral vaccines should be an organized governmental effort from now on. Coordinated by WHO or something.
ChemSpider 6y ago
But how will waiving the IP help India to produce more? They already have all the licenses they need. It is a resource constraint, not a license/IP issue. If US/UK would finally allow vaccine exports like the EU does, _that_ would help India.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  I’m not sure I understand why we aren’t? In my area it seems there are now plenty of vaccine doses to go around now. Anyone can walk in to one of the various vaccine clinics set up by the county and get it. No appointment, no ID, no insurance needed. When I went they were practically begging me to spread the word to friends and family.
  - Kalium 6y ago
    At a time when the US has vaccinated under 50% of its population - https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/covid-vaccine-states-distribution-doses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/covid-va... - do you think it's possible that perhaps your area might not be a fully representative sample?
- Kalium 6y ago
  I think you've hit it exactly. There's no reason to think that resolving IP concerns will speed up production and deployment in India. Problems there have more to do with the state of their logistical and healthcare infrastructure than the (very impressive) vaccine production capabilities of the Serum Institute of India. It's also maybe a little relevant that the Modi government didn't order nearly enough vaccines early enough.
- bluGill 6y ago
  The US is finally allowing vaccine exports. The ban lifted May 1. It will take time to ramp up though.
  - ChemSpider 6y ago
    Unfortunately the defense production act is still active. Curevac for example reports production issues: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/curevac-says-mass-vaccine-rollout-thrown-into-doubt-by-us-restrictions-2021-05-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
antibuddy 6y ago
In India currently die ~2 people per 100k per week on Corona. In Germany it was over triple that in December. The total Corona mortality in India is also way way lower as in Germany (16.842/100k vs 100.35/100k). I am not sure that the moral panic is even justified.
- iso1631 6y ago
  You'er basing that on official figures from a country which has cities whose healthcare systems collapsed. Makeshift funeral pyres in the middle of a city street don't happen in a country where something hasn't gone terribly wrong Delhi's official death rate of the last 7 days was 9 per 100k, and University of Michigan are estimating real rates at 2-5 times higher than that for India as a whole.
  - antibuddy 6y ago
    > Makeshift funeral pyres in the middle of a city street don't happen in a country where something hasn't gone terribly wrong The same was said in Germany/Saxony (crematoria capacity reached), however they plain omitted the fact that usually these were outsourced to Czech Republic, but borders were closed. Cherry-picking parts of the story but omitting others is so common that I am hesitant to take it as is. It would be certainly better to have overall mortality, so it would be easier to reason about the veracity of COVID mortality, however I am not convinced by obvious emotional manipulation. > Delhi's official death rate of the last 7 days was 9 per 100k, and University of Michigan are estimating real rates at 2-5 times higher than that for India as a whole. 9/100k/w is not very high for cities given they are drastically more affected by pandemics in general. 2-5 times is quite a big margin, but I would be interested in how they came to these numbers.
  - antibuddy 6y ago
    In Kerala the all-cause mortality decreased from 2019-2020[0] - something you could observe in Germany as well. Kerala is said to be more advanced than other states in India, however it lends some credence to the official numbers. [0]: https://health.kerala.gov.in/pdf/Technical-paper-All-Cause-Mortality-Kerala.pdf https://health.kerala.gov.in/pdf/Technical-paper-All-Cause-M...
nevermindiguess 6y ago
Imagine how much it would help to take your house away from you (without compensating you) to build that Highway. So many people would benefit from it. Perhaps even save lives by removing that dangerous crossing.

SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago

> But the production of such vaccines is not easy Oh? " "Manufacturing mRNA vaccines is surprisingly straightforward. Compared to conventional vaccine production, mRNA factories are: * 99 - 99.9% smaller * 95 - 99.7% cheaper * 1,000% faster" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27061674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27061674 https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-is-surprisingly-straightforward-despite-what-bill-gates-thinks-222cffb686ee https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-i... https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/amp2.10060 https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/amp2....

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
magnio 6y ago
From "Myths of Vaccine Manufacturing"[0] > These will be special-purpose bespoke machines, and if you ask other drug companies if they have one sitting around, the answer will be “Of course not”. This is not anything close to a traditional drug manufacturing process. And this is the single biggest reason why you cannot simply call up those “dozens” of other companies and ask them to shift their existing production over to making the mRNA vaccines. There are not dozens of companies who make DNA templates on the needed scale. There are definitely not dozens of companies who can make enough RNA. But most importantly, I believe that you can count on one hand the number of facilities who can make the critical lipid nanoparticles. Also see this article[1] which details the supply chain of mRNA vaccines as well as the bottleneck of lipid nanoparticle assembly. These mRNA vaccines also have strict requirements for storage/distribution, preventing them from wider usage. [0]: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/myths-of-vaccine-manufacturing https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/my... [1]: https://blog.jonasneubert.com/2021/01/10/exploring-the-supply-chain-of-the-pfizer-biontech-and-moderna-covid-19-vaccines/ https://blog.jonasneubert.com/2021/01/10/exploring-the-suppl...
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago