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Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#51

Post by andy_ppp »

baybal2 wrote: post #28

Indian pharmacies already disregard medication patents without anybody's permission. Vaccine manufacturing is just a way more involved process than anything what an average organic synthesis shop can handle. Dealing with antibodies, proteins, plasmids, or RNA requires real factories rather than garage labs. What one need is a complete process transfer : instructions on setting up every process, along with supplies ne…

Just saying generics of vaccines are allowed seems pointless, how will these others get the correct recipe? Seems like it could be potentially very problematic should these vaccines not work if much less problematic than COVID.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#52

Post by beckman466 »

vkou wrote: post #21
supernova87a wrote: post #3

How would a "waiver" work? Last I understood about law, a country can't take away the rights of companies (or people) without their consent or modifying the patent laws. Or is this a matter where because it has to do with overseas patent protection, the US could decline to enforce certain agreements? And don't companies have patent protection in every country they seek to do business anyway?

A country can take away whatever rights it wants to within its borders. That's the whole point of sovereignty. Patent laws are also not some natural, inalienable right. They are artificial constructs, provided as a courtesy, because the government feels that in the general case, they are more beneficial than harmful. In a particular case, they might be more harmful than beneficial.

> Patent laws [...] are artificial constructs

What do you make of the move corporations are making away from the use of patents, towards the use of a hybrid ‘trade secret + patent‘ sandwich? Is there a scenario where it does not stifle innovation?

I’m asking because I personally don’t see any. As you said these systems are artificial constructs, and at the worst this taking away as trade secrets is theft on an enormous scale.

The internet allows mass collaboration, and I believe we are still in the very early stages of developing this infrastructure.

Elaboration on what exactly I mean by ‘patent + trade secret’ sandwich here: https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/19/dont-fooled-patent-pur...

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#53

Post by makomk »

throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

Yeah, and if Trump was still in power I have zero doubt the media would call him out on what a cynical stunt this is - but Biden is in charge now, and that makes a huge difference to how they report on everything.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#54

Post by makomk »

KirillPanov wrote: post #40
baybal2 wrote: post #28

Indian pharmacies already disregard medication patents without anybody's permission. Vaccine manufacturing is just a way more involved process than anything what an average organic synthesis shop can handle. Dealing with antibodies, proteins, plasmids, or RNA requires real factories rather than garage labs. What one need is a complete process transfer : instructions on setting up every process, along with supplies ne…

I would love it if somebody would post a more detailed explanation of the mRNA vaccine manufacturing process here on HN. The news media keeps mumbling vague terms like "ingredients", and it's frustrating. Conventional vaccine production is a highly biological process... chicken eggs being used to make the flu vaccines and so forth. I was under the impression that the mRNA vaccines are chemically much simpler -- just…

As I understand it, the big problem isn't so much chemical as physical - they need to encapsulate the mRNA evenly within lipid particles of a reasonably uniform size, and there's some pretty advanced microfluidic technology involved in doing this. Conventional vaccine production has the advantage that biology takes care of all that pesky encapsulation business.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#55

Post by maxerickson »

KirillPanov wrote: post #40
baybal2 wrote: post #28

Indian pharmacies already disregard medication patents without anybody's permission. Vaccine manufacturing is just a way more involved process than anything what an average organic synthesis shop can handle. Dealing with antibodies, proteins, plasmids, or RNA requires real factories rather than garage labs. What one need is a complete process transfer : instructions on setting up every process, along with supplies ne…

I would love it if somebody would post a more detailed explanation of the mRNA vaccine manufacturing process here on HN. The news media keeps mumbling vague terms like "ingredients", and it's frustrating. Conventional vaccine production is a highly biological process... chicken eggs being used to make the flu vaccines and so forth. I was under the impression that the mRNA vaccines are chemically much simpler -- just…

They brew them. A DNA sequence that encodes the intended mRNA strand is embedded into a bacterial plasmid. Bacteria take in that plasmid and reproduce, making a bunch of plasmids with the mRNA encoding DNA embedded in them. The bacteria are killed and broken open and the plasmids are purified.

The DNA sequence is then cut out of the plasmids and transcribed into mRNA.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/pfizer-coron...

I bet getting that batch of bacteria to grow and make lots of the desired plasmids is a nice trick to pull off.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#56

Post by jfk13 »

thepasswordis wrote: post #36

This seems like a performative move that does nothing at best, and destroys the credibility of mRNA vaccines at worst. The manufacture of these vaccines is not simple. It is not simply a matter of the US “waiving” a patent. However if other countries decide to participate in this performance, they may end up just manufacturing a vaccine which doesn’t work. The virus is killing thousands per day. Do you really think a…

> proudly flaunts patents

I'm pretty sure you meant "flouts" here.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#57

Post by Tarsul »

makomk wrote: post #53
throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

Yeah, and if Trump was still in power I have zero doubt the media would call him out on what a cynical stunt this is - but Biden is in charge now, and that makes a huge difference to how they report on everything.

Well, Trumps actions would have been self-serving and cynical (as they all were). Biden hasn't shown those 'qualities'. Which is why I (and the WHO) give him the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#58

Post by maxerickson »

thepasswordis wrote: post #36

This seems like a performative move that does nothing at best, and destroys the credibility of mRNA vaccines at worst. The manufacture of these vaccines is not simple. It is not simply a matter of the US “waiving” a patent. However if other countries decide to participate in this performance, they may end up just manufacturing a vaccine which doesn’t work. The virus is killing thousands per day. Do you really think a…

BioNTech has a Chinese partner, their vaccine isn't approved in China yet.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/fosun-follows-biontech...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-plans-to-approve-first-fo...

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#59

Post by andreareina »

KirillPanov wrote: post #40
baybal2 wrote: post #28

Indian pharmacies already disregard medication patents without anybody's permission. Vaccine manufacturing is just a way more involved process than anything what an average organic synthesis shop can handle. Dealing with antibodies, proteins, plasmids, or RNA requires real factories rather than garage labs. What one need is a complete process transfer : instructions on setting up every process, along with supplies ne…

I would love it if somebody would post a more detailed explanation of the mRNA vaccine manufacturing process here on HN. The news media keeps mumbling vague terms like "ingredients", and it's frustrating. Conventional vaccine production is a highly biological process... chicken eggs being used to make the flu vaccines and so forth. I was under the impression that the mRNA vaccines are chemically much simpler -- just…

Derek Lowe goes into it a little bit with some links to further resources.

[1] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/my...

[2] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/22/mo...

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#60

Post by jollybean »

throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

Opening up the IP is a 'win' for almost everyone but the companies making vaccines, so there's not much downside.

Exporting individual vaccines might break contracts, and because it's a little bit zero-sum, the public at large may hold him in contempt for not putting 'America first'.

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