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> The goals of a HSV-2 vaccine are to keep the herpes virus dormant Combined with effect being limited in time (say, for half a year) this would create a stead

> The goals of a HSV-2 vaccine are to keep the herpes virus dormant Combined with effect being limited in time (say, for half a year) this would create a steady revenue stream.

_Microft 5y ago
This statement seems to assume that a limited duration of protection is a given. We don't know that. It could also as well be that it is actually impossible to clear out all reservoirs of the virus in the body once someone was infected. No need to assume nefarious intent (i.e. it being designed to keep people sick) right from the beginning.
- helge9210 5y ago
  It was more of "If I would have to make sure there will be a steady revenue stream in the future, I would also try to achieve a limited time protection effect".
  - yuvalr1 5y ago
    What's good about open markets is that if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using his/hers. This gives you an incentive to create such product yourself.
    - fragmede 5y ago
      Nah. Talk to the other producer(s) in secret and make a gentleman's agreement not to create a permanent cure. The regulations surrounding pharmaceuticals is enough to prevent other companies from entering the market. Illegal as shit but crimes have happened before.
      - thefounder 5y ago
        What's the solution? Maybe more gov investment? The chinese surely have that part covered.
        ebanana 5y ago
        Transparency, or a bigger push towards crowd science platforms for open source drugs. Basically people who have in interest in medicines because it’s their passion work together like how the open source community works together. And then people like us find those projects. Idk health is not something we should pick and choose who gets what, that is causing a ton of unease under the surface that is bubbling up. You can only gas something so much before the amount of gas build up faster than released. But hopefully we start by making it illegal for politicians to own stock while in office.
        WalterBright 5y ago
        > health is not something we should pick and choose who gets what It's not possible for everyone to get the best of everything. After all, markets are about distributing scarce resources, not abundant ones.
        ebanana 5y ago
        well there is innovation, what was scarce years ago became less scarce through creative thinking, we have not arrived at the end of a thought yet, things evolve and what we call scarce today is not even a tip of the resources the future will see. the more minds we have working on something the more we realize of previous definition of scarcity was just in thought and not in product
        411111111111111 5y ago
        there is no simple solution which can be summed up for a ycombinator comment. that doesn't mean that the issue isn't real or isn't happening, because capitalism very much incites this kind of behaviour. That doesn't mean that abandoning capitalism is the right approach either, because that also solved other issues that would come back without it. Its just not an easy situation, but its nonetheless a reality that we have to admit that this kind of behaviour is highly rewarded with our current system and expect corporations to do whatever they can get away with, because most of the people that reach the highest position are amoral, simply because you cannot get to this kind of position without having that character trait
      - Nasrudith 5y ago
        Ugh, those dumb "withholding the cure" conspiratorial tropes. Have you looked at infamous asset striping companies and corporate raiders? Or even the short-termism of most companies? They don't think beyond optimizing next quarter share price and this is the default the business model of a publicly traded company which bucks the trend is noted when describing a company and not the other way around. That is a 0-bit compression case. There is thus absolutely no shortage of people who are willing to burn perfectly profitable companies for big enough short term gain. In this case they would wind up eating an entire submarket. I think orders of magnitude more qualifies as a temptation. The situation is also inherently a prisoner's dilemma - pharmaceutical companies know that they are not special and that anything they let sit quietly buried may be discovered by another company who may benefit from the short term cash. This is before getting into how immensely valueable the "ashes" are for any company who goes the cure route successfully. They have a reputational premium and have a collective team whose appraised value has risen. Given the choice between your average team of X years of experience and a disease curing team with X years of experience guess which one would appraise higher in share prices by a considerable margin?
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      > if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using his That's what patents are (abused) for.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      In practice everyone will collude to have chronic treatments and do bullshit clinical trials that prove non inferiority. And regulators are asleep at the wheel.
    - InsomniacL 5y ago
      > if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using his Whoever creates the permanent solution is likely to maximise profits, charging a premium which people may begrudgingly pay to not have the inconvenience of renewing their protection. I expect there would be a balance point for those who can afford and those who cannot.
    - Brian_K_White 5y ago
      Incorrect.
    - hammock 5y ago
      Prescription drugs are not an open market. At the less extreme end, you have FDA authority to approve a product. At the more extreme end, you have the entire corporate media establishment lined up against you and doctors threatened with disbarment for prescribing (or even just advising) off-label.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > This statement seems to assume that a limited duration of protection is a given. We don't know that. you can be sure they will design it like that or select the right versions that have such properties. Thats what you end up with MBAs leading businesses everywhere.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  No need to pretend not to know that it's possible for a researcher to do their honest best and arrive at a subscription service palliative, and at the same time for the c-suite to think "nice".
zohch 5y ago
> Combined with effect being limited in time (say, for half a year) this would create a steady revenue stream. Why would the effect be limited? I mean it could be, but it could also cause people to turn green, not sure why we would consider either of those to be likely though without more info. If you are assuming the effect will be limited because the effect of the covid vaccine is limited, this may be more related to covid than to mRNA vaccines, especially since the non mRNA covid vaccines seems to be less effective than the mRNA vaccines, and not more so. And after all, the mechanism of action for mRNA vaccines and non mRNA vaccines are not fundamentally different, both induce an immune response to a pathogen without giving you a disease.
- OJFord 5y ago
  The second half of the quote? At least I think that's the implication. i.e. No incentive to make it unlimited, or even an incentive to make it limited if unlimited found first. (Or both, and way mark-up the unlimited one.) Not saying I agree/am quite that suspicious/pessimistic necessarily, but that's how I read it.
  - zohch 5y ago
    Okay, sure, but this would be quite the feat of medical engineering to hack the immune system to the point where it no longer operates as normal, as the normal function of the immune system is what determines the immune response to a vaccine and the resulting immunity. I mean they could make one that turns you green and then mark up the one that does not also, that has not been the case, and generally vaccines produced by private companies without government involvement have significantly outperformed every vaccine made with government involvement, and every government action in US and most of the west in relation to these covid vaccines has been to favor pharmaceutical companies that make them over it's own citizenry, so basically it seems that the pharmaceutical companies that made these vaccines are much more deserving of public trust than many governments. I mean if the pharmacutical companies abducted your children in the middle of the night and ransomed them back to you that would also create a steady revenue stream, not sure why it would be something to consider.
refurb 5y ago
If you think scientists can intentionally design something to be transient you’re showing your absolute ignorance of scientific research. When you work on hard problems like this you’re thankful it works at all.
- PedroBatista 5y ago
  How cute.. Even a trees can only grow where the gardener lets them. The mRNA vaccines aren't a conspiracy to milk and control the population, some people are trying their very best to do good. ALSO, there are people that have a sole "job" of milking every cent possible and others that use this as an opportunity to gain influence and advance whatever political/business career they pursuit. This happens everywhere and every time. Yes, this "they are in this to get us" get's tiring but let's not put the "scientists" in a pedestal, because they are people e many of them aren't even scientists.
  - refurb 5y ago
    This has nothing to do with scientist motivations and everything to do with scientific advancement. If you think you scientists have multiple options in front of them and can pick the most financially opportunistic one, you have no idea what R&D is like I’ve been in the lab, have you?
    - PedroBatista 5y ago
      Did you understood this expression? - "Even trees can only grow where the gardener lets them."
      - refurb 5y ago
        Considering research “paths” are often measured in decades I’d be massively impressed if a scientist could guess what would be profitable 20 years from now.
  - chiefalchemist 5y ago
    To your point, opioids are a great example of meds in a profits- first world. That aside, it certainly possible to have infinite respect for the scientific method, but at the same time be mindful that method meets reality via (often very flawed) humans. Questioning the human element in this equation doesn't make you anti-science (because there's a difference between the two).

> The goals of a HSV-2 vaccine are to keep the herpes virus dormant Combined with effect being limited in time (say, for half a year) this would create a steady revenue stream.

_Microft 5y ago

This statement seems to assume that a limited duration of protection is a given. We don't know that. It could also as well be that it is actually impossible to clear out all reservoirs of the virus in the body once someone was infected. No need to assume nefarious intent (i.e. it being designed to keep people sick) right from the beginning.

helge9210 5y ago
It was more of "If I would have to make sure there will be a steady revenue stream in the future, I would also try to achieve a limited time protection effect".
- yuvalr1 5y ago
  What's good about open markets is that if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using his/hers. This gives you an incentive to create such product yourself.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    Nah. Talk to the other producer(s) in secret and make a gentleman's agreement not to create a permanent cure. The regulations surrounding pharmaceuticals is enough to prevent other companies from entering the market. Illegal as shit but crimes have happened before.
    - thefounder 5y ago
      What's the solution? Maybe more gov investment? The chinese surely have that part covered.
      - ebanana 5y ago
        Transparency, or a bigger push towards crowd science platforms for open source drugs. Basically people who have in interest in medicines because it’s their passion work together like how the open source community works together. And then people like us find those projects. Idk health is not something we should pick and choose who gets what, that is causing a ton of unease under the surface that is bubbling up. You can only gas something so much before the amount of gas build up faster than released. But hopefully we start by making it illegal for politicians to own stock while in office.
        WalterBright 5y ago
        > health is not something we should pick and choose who gets what It's not possible for everyone to get the best of everything. After all, markets are about distributing scarce resources, not abundant ones.
        ebanana 5y ago
        well there is innovation, what was scarce years ago became less scarce through creative thinking, we have not arrived at the end of a thought yet, things evolve and what we call scarce today is not even a tip of the resources the future will see. the more minds we have working on something the more we realize of previous definition of scarcity was just in thought and not in product
      - 411111111111111 5y ago
        there is no simple solution which can be summed up for a ycombinator comment. that doesn't mean that the issue isn't real or isn't happening, because capitalism very much incites this kind of behaviour. That doesn't mean that abandoning capitalism is the right approach either, because that also solved other issues that would come back without it. Its just not an easy situation, but its nonetheless a reality that we have to admit that this kind of behaviour is highly rewarded with our current system and expect corporations to do whatever they can get away with, because most of the people that reach the highest position are amoral, simply because you cannot get to this kind of position without having that character trait
    - Nasrudith 5y ago
      Ugh, those dumb "withholding the cure" conspiratorial tropes. Have you looked at infamous asset striping companies and corporate raiders? Or even the short-termism of most companies? They don't think beyond optimizing next quarter share price and this is the default the business model of a publicly traded company which bucks the trend is noted when describing a company and not the other way around. That is a 0-bit compression case. There is thus absolutely no shortage of people who are willing to burn perfectly profitable companies for big enough short term gain. In this case they would wind up eating an entire submarket. I think orders of magnitude more qualifies as a temptation. The situation is also inherently a prisoner's dilemma - pharmaceutical companies know that they are not special and that anything they let sit quietly buried may be discovered by another company who may benefit from the short term cash. This is before getting into how immensely valueable the "ashes" are for any company who goes the cure route successfully. They have a reputational premium and have a collective team whose appraised value has risen. Given the choice between your average team of X years of experience and a disease curing team with X years of experience guess which one would appraise higher in share prices by a considerable margin?
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    > if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using his That's what patents are (abused) for.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    In practice everyone will collude to have chronic treatments and do bullshit clinical trials that prove non inferiority. And regulators are asleep at the wheel.
  - InsomniacL 5y ago
    > if someone else finds a permanent protection, then people will stop using your product and start using his Whoever creates the permanent solution is likely to maximise profits, charging a premium which people may begrudgingly pay to not have the inconvenience of renewing their protection. I expect there would be a balance point for those who can afford and those who cannot.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    Incorrect.
  - hammock 5y ago
    Prescription drugs are not an open market. At the less extreme end, you have FDA authority to approve a product. At the more extreme end, you have the entire corporate media establishment lined up against you and doctors threatened with disbarment for prescribing (or even just advising) off-label.
ekianjo 5y ago
> This statement seems to assume that a limited duration of protection is a given. We don't know that. you can be sure they will design it like that or select the right versions that have such properties. Thats what you end up with MBAs leading businesses everywhere.
Brian_K_White 5y ago
No need to pretend not to know that it's possible for a researcher to do their honest best and arrive at a subscription service palliative, and at the same time for the c-suite to think "nice".

zohch 5y ago

> Combined with effect being limited in time (say, for half a year) this would create a steady revenue stream. Why would the effect be limited? I mean it could be, but it could also cause people to turn green, not sure why we would consider either of those to be likely though without more info. If you are assuming the effect will be limited because the effect of the covid vaccine is limited, this may be more related to covid than to mRNA vaccines, especially since the non mRNA covid vaccines seems to be less effective than the mRNA vaccines, and not more so. And after all, the mechanism of action for mRNA vaccines and non mRNA vaccines are not fundamentally different, both induce an immune response to a pathogen without giving you a disease.

OJFord 5y ago
The second half of the quote? At least I think that's the implication. i.e. No incentive to make it unlimited, or even an incentive to make it limited if unlimited found first. (Or both, and way mark-up the unlimited one.) Not saying I agree/am quite that suspicious/pessimistic necessarily, but that's how I read it.
- zohch 5y ago
  Okay, sure, but this would be quite the feat of medical engineering to hack the immune system to the point where it no longer operates as normal, as the normal function of the immune system is what determines the immune response to a vaccine and the resulting immunity. I mean they could make one that turns you green and then mark up the one that does not also, that has not been the case, and generally vaccines produced by private companies without government involvement have significantly outperformed every vaccine made with government involvement, and every government action in US and most of the west in relation to these covid vaccines has been to favor pharmaceutical companies that make them over it's own citizenry, so basically it seems that the pharmaceutical companies that made these vaccines are much more deserving of public trust than many governments. I mean if the pharmacutical companies abducted your children in the middle of the night and ransomed them back to you that would also create a steady revenue stream, not sure why it would be something to consider.

refurb 5y ago

If you think scientists can intentionally design something to be transient you’re showing your absolute ignorance of scientific research. When you work on hard problems like this you’re thankful it works at all.

PedroBatista 5y ago
How cute.. Even a trees can only grow where the gardener lets them. The mRNA vaccines aren't a conspiracy to milk and control the population, some people are trying their very best to do good. ALSO, there are people that have a sole "job" of milking every cent possible and others that use this as an opportunity to gain influence and advance whatever political/business career they pursuit. This happens everywhere and every time. Yes, this "they are in this to get us" get's tiring but let's not put the "scientists" in a pedestal, because they are people e many of them aren't even scientists.
- refurb 5y ago
  This has nothing to do with scientist motivations and everything to do with scientific advancement. If you think you scientists have multiple options in front of them and can pick the most financially opportunistic one, you have no idea what R&D is like I’ve been in the lab, have you?
  - PedroBatista 5y ago
    Did you understood this expression? - "Even trees can only grow where the gardener lets them."
    - refurb 5y ago
      Considering research “paths” are often measured in decades I’d be massively impressed if a scientist could guess what would be profitable 20 years from now.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  To your point, opioids are a great example of meds in a profits- first world. That aside, it certainly possible to have infinite respect for the scientific method, but at the same time be mindful that method meets reality via (often very flawed) humans. Questioning the human element in this equation doesn't make you anti-science (because there's a difference between the two).