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A long wall of obfuscation and pharmaceutical industry apologetics that can be trivially dismissed by simply pointing at myriad other vaccines that were also pu

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.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  Refer, again, to the example of Cuba’s COVID vaccine.
  - signatoremo 3y ago
    Check out the list of drugs that Moderna has in the pipeline: https://www.modernatx.com/research/product-pipeline https://www.modernatx.com/research/product-pipeline Almost all of them are still long way to go before becoming commercial products, if at all. Does it look like they run off with it as you asserted? Or do they have to shoulder the development cost and risk? One of the drugs is of course their COVID vaccine which is a home run. It’s the potential of such windfall that makes them willing to bet on all of the other drugs in the pipeline. You cited Cuba’s COVID vaccine. How many other drugs do they have in pipeline? Right, not so many compared to all of the drugs developed by private money. Ask yourself, with regard to their COVID vaccine, how extensive was the testing? can they scale the production? how widely can they distribute the vaccine?
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      Cuba has a fairly large biomedical sector and export industry, despite being under crushing sanctions. It’s absurd to ask about the scale of their development relative to private industry in the US because it’s impossible for them to even gain access to the same raw materials. But that’s also entirely beside the point because the discussion was about whether we need to allow Moderna to rake in billions off public investment in basic research and IP rentiering in order to make COVID vaccines possible. The example of the Cuban vaccine disproves this, but all the pharma apologists of course prefer to talk circles around this point instead of addressing it.
reissbaker 3y ago
Using existing vaccine tech isn't the same as developing entirely new technology, which mRNA is and Cuba's vaccine isn't. And the tech Cuba used was developed by pharma companies first, too — protein subunit vaccines are well established, used for hepatitis B, tetanus, and others. And if existing tech works well enough — great! Then use it, and don't use the more expensive mRNA ones. Of course, there are benefits to mRNA vaccines, which is why they were deployed first — Moderna had a working vaccine barely over a month after starting work on it, with only the gene sequence of the virus from Chinese labs to work with. All the rest of the time was just testing. Effectively being able to print a vaccine given a gene sequence is extremely useful. And again — the state (aka the United States) does not fully fund research. It provides less than half of funding in a non-banner year, and a fraction in boom years. Cutting funding not only would hurt deployment and development, it would also harm fundamental research.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  I never argued that they should cut funding, but should reap the benefit of their investment and not allow private companies to run roughshod over them at the expense of global public health. I have no idea why I’m on a VC-backed website explaining the concept of ROI, surrounded by special pleading about how the initial investor (the state) isn’t owed anything in return.

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.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
Refer, again, to the example of Cuba’s COVID vaccine.
- signatoremo 3y ago
  Check out the list of drugs that Moderna has in the pipeline: https://www.modernatx.com/research/product-pipeline https://www.modernatx.com/research/product-pipeline Almost all of them are still long way to go before becoming commercial products, if at all. Does it look like they run off with it as you asserted? Or do they have to shoulder the development cost and risk? One of the drugs is of course their COVID vaccine which is a home run. It’s the potential of such windfall that makes them willing to bet on all of the other drugs in the pipeline. You cited Cuba’s COVID vaccine. How many other drugs do they have in pipeline? Right, not so many compared to all of the drugs developed by private money. Ask yourself, with regard to their COVID vaccine, how extensive was the testing? can they scale the production? how widely can they distribute the vaccine?
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Cuba has a fairly large biomedical sector and export industry, despite being under crushing sanctions. It’s absurd to ask about the scale of their development relative to private industry in the US because it’s impossible for them to even gain access to the same raw materials. But that’s also entirely beside the point because the discussion was about whether we need to allow Moderna to rake in billions off public investment in basic research and IP rentiering in order to make COVID vaccines possible. The example of the Cuban vaccine disproves this, but all the pharma apologists of course prefer to talk circles around this point instead of addressing it.

reissbaker 3y ago

Using existing vaccine tech isn't the same as developing entirely new technology, which mRNA is and Cuba's vaccine isn't. And the tech Cuba used was developed by pharma companies first, too — protein subunit vaccines are well established, used for hepatitis B, tetanus, and others. And if existing tech works well enough — great! Then use it, and don't use the more expensive mRNA ones. Of course, there are benefits to mRNA vaccines, which is why they were deployed first — Moderna had a working vaccine barely over a month after starting work on it, with only the gene sequence of the virus from Chinese labs to work with. All the rest of the time was just testing. Effectively being able to print a vaccine given a gene sequence is extremely useful. And again — the state (aka the United States) does not fully fund research. It provides less than half of funding in a non-banner year, and a fraction in boom years. Cutting funding not only would hurt deployment and development, it would also harm fundamental research.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
I never argued that they should cut funding, but should reap the benefit of their investment and not allow private companies to run roughshod over them at the expense of global public health. I have no idea why I’m on a VC-backed website explaining the concept of ROI, surrounded by special pleading about how the initial investor (the state) isn’t owed anything in return.