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> mRNA vaccine production methods are tough, e.g. Moderna’s encapsulation technology …and were invented with publicly-funded research that they’ve now privatiz

> mRNA vaccine production methods are tough, e.g. Moderna’s encapsulation technology …and were invented with publicly-funded research that they’ve now privatized, resulting in large death tolls from vaccine inequity in poor countries.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> were invented with publicly-funded research that they’ve now privatized, resulting in large death tolls from vaccine inequity in poor countries This is an odd complaint for this circumstance. Those poor countries didn’t materially fund these vaccines’ development. And production was fundamentally constrained; nations entered into bidding wars to secure them. In the end, geopolitics dictated which vaccines—if any—poor people got. Covid vaccines were distributed through non-market channels.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  It’s not at all odd because we learned the disastrous, widespread international consequences, of privatization of HIV/AIDS treatments in the 90s and 2000s. Treatments were developed with publicly-funded research in rich western countries, hoarded for profit at the cost of mass death in the developing world, which led to increased severity of the disease from unchecked spread, which then spread back into the countries that hoarded them. There is nothing more fundamentally stupid than trying to manage global pandemics with nationalism and IP restrictions in a world with interconnected economies and constant international travel.
  - throwaway8877 3y ago
    We saw the same in case with covid too. But, ..., the main issue is that those poor countries have increased their population by many orders of magnitude and this makes large scale support incredibly hard. Imagine if African population was still around 200 million people as it was in 50s instead on 1.5 billion it is today.
deleted 3y ago
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reissbaker 3y ago
IMO they resulted in massive reductions of death across the world. In a world where pharma companies needed to surrender their IP if it was too useful, Moderna wouldn't have gotten funded to pioneer this new and difficult technology, and mRNA vaccines simply wouldn't exist. Having publicly-funded research doesn't mean you can ignore profit either — the public funding for mRNA was that the initial research was done at UPenn, which receives NIH grants. But large research universities don't exist on public funding alone — they license the patents they hold to companies to develop them, which is a huge part of their revenue. For the mRNA royalties alone, in 2022 UPenn received over $750 million, which exceeded the total of all of UPenn's NIH grants for that year combined. Even in smaller-revenue years like 2020, public funding represents significantly less than half of UPenn's revenue sources. Take away UPenn's ability to monetize their research, and their ability to fund the fundamental research goes down too. In my view the default isn't that diseases cure themselves. The default is people die. If pushing forward the state of the art of vaccine tech didn't need money in order to be built, what was stopping anyone else from doing it? And if it does need money, well... Then it needs to be well-funded, meaning it needs to show the potential for profit. I don't think charity has proven an excellent model for funding advanced scientific development of this kind.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  A long wall of obfuscation and pharmaceutical industry apologetics that can be trivially dismissed by simply pointing at myriad other vaccines that were also publicly-funded, are not constrained by IP, and saved millions of lives. Your last point is also hysterical because yes, the research needs massive investment, the state provides it, and then allows private companies to run off with it and charge them again for the very thing they made possible in the first place. It’s about as insane and corrupt as could ever be imagined. I’ll also highlight that Cuba developed a highly effective COVID vaccine as a poor country, under extreme sanctions, and shared hundreds of millions of doses to other poor countries, which further demonstrates what you claim to be untrue.
  - signatoremo 3y ago
    > Your last point is also hysterical because yes, the research needs massive investment, the state provides it, and then allows private companies to run off with it A research is only the beginning. It usually takes many years and lot of investment to bring a drug to the market. There is also high risk that none of the investment will be recouped. That’s the role that private companies can do well. They don’t just “run off with it”. ASML, for example, benefits heavily from EUV research done in the US with public fund. Yet you can’t say they ran off with it. They invested heavily, and it took them many years to perfect the technology.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> were invented with publicly-funded research that they’ve now privatized, resulting in large death tolls from vaccine inequity in poor countries This is an odd complaint for this circumstance. Those poor countries didn’t materially fund these vaccines’ development. And production was fundamentally constrained; nations entered into bidding wars to secure them. In the end, geopolitics dictated which vaccines—if any—poor people got. Covid vaccines were distributed through non-market channels.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
It’s not at all odd because we learned the disastrous, widespread international consequences, of privatization of HIV/AIDS treatments in the 90s and 2000s. Treatments were developed with publicly-funded research in rich western countries, hoarded for profit at the cost of mass death in the developing world, which led to increased severity of the disease from unchecked spread, which then spread back into the countries that hoarded them. There is nothing more fundamentally stupid than trying to manage global pandemics with nationalism and IP restrictions in a world with interconnected economies and constant international travel.
- throwaway8877 3y ago
  We saw the same in case with covid too. But, ..., the main issue is that those poor countries have increased their population by many orders of magnitude and this makes large scale support incredibly hard. Imagine if African population was still around 200 million people as it was in 50s instead on 1.5 billion it is today.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

reissbaker 3y ago

IMO they resulted in massive reductions of death across the world. In a world where pharma companies needed to surrender their IP if it was too useful, Moderna wouldn't have gotten funded to pioneer this new and difficult technology, and mRNA vaccines simply wouldn't exist. Having publicly-funded research doesn't mean you can ignore profit either — the public funding for mRNA was that the initial research was done at UPenn, which receives NIH grants. But large research universities don't exist on public funding alone — they license the patents they hold to companies to develop them, which is a huge part of their revenue. For the mRNA royalties alone, in 2022 UPenn received over $750 million, which exceeded the total of all of UPenn's NIH grants for that year combined. Even in smaller-revenue years like 2020, public funding represents significantly less than half of UPenn's revenue sources. Take away UPenn's ability to monetize their research, and their ability to fund the fundamental research goes down too. In my view the default isn't that diseases cure themselves. The default is people die. If pushing forward the state of the art of vaccine tech didn't need money in order to be built, what was stopping anyone else from doing it? And if it does need money, well... Then it needs to be well-funded, meaning it needs to show the potential for profit. I don't think charity has proven an excellent model for funding advanced scientific development of this kind.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
A long wall of obfuscation and pharmaceutical industry apologetics that can be trivially dismissed by simply pointing at myriad other vaccines that were also publicly-funded, are not constrained by IP, and saved millions of lives. Your last point is also hysterical because yes, the research needs massive investment, the state provides it, and then allows private companies to run off with it and charge them again for the very thing they made possible in the first place. It’s about as insane and corrupt as could ever be imagined. I’ll also highlight that Cuba developed a highly effective COVID vaccine as a poor country, under extreme sanctions, and shared hundreds of millions of doses to other poor countries, which further demonstrates what you claim to be untrue.
- signatoremo 3y ago
  > Your last point is also hysterical because yes, the research needs massive investment, the state provides it, and then allows private companies to run off with it A research is only the beginning. It usually takes many years and lot of investment to bring a drug to the market. There is also high risk that none of the investment will be recouped. That’s the role that private companies can do well. They don’t just “run off with it”. ASML, for example, benefits heavily from EUV research done in the US with public fund. Yet you can’t say they ran off with it. They invested heavily, and it took them many years to perfect the technology.