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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

#101

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

magnio wrote: post #94
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-i... https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://aich…

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 ov…

> 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”

I'm going to take a guess, but maybe in ten years time, the answer will be "Of course, yes".

Why wouldn't it be?

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#102

Post by tobessebot »

beckman466 wrote: post #46
tobessebot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They rightly fear that in 2-3 years, when the pandemic is likely over everywhere and other people have figured out how to commercialize the IP, they won't be the only ones producing their vaccines. This isn't going to help India or anyone in the short term and there'll be more than enough doses for every person on Earth by next year. Why should they not retain the IP rights to make a profit on new generations that ne…

> This isn't going to help India or anyone in the short term Why not? I’m not hearing a clear argument or evidence to support that withholding the patent recipe wouldn’t save millions of lives? India now has a very high number of cases. As it stands now, your argument just sounds to me like: “yes human lives, but... profit“. Please could you elaborate on your argument and/or provide examples of what you’re describing…

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

This is about mRNA vaccines, but similar things exist for viral vector vaccines as well. Technology transfer, bioreactor bags, fill-finish capacity, all of these things are bottlenecked till next year basically.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#103

Post by elliekelly »

fxtentacle wrote: post #44
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…

I believe this is exactly the reason why the US promotes it and Germany opposes it. It's mainly a discussion about whether Pfizer (US) has to pay licensing fees to Biontech (DE).

Is there anywhere I can read more about this? In the grand scheme of American healthcare costs I don’t think the ~$20 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is where we should suddenly try to cut costs by stiffing the scientists who did all the hard work over a decade to make it happen. I’m assuming the current $20 price tag already includes BioNTech’s fees?

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#104

Post by jffry »

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?

I believe that yes, the angle on this is overseas patent protection, as moderated by the WTO.

This "waiver" seems like it would essentially be the WTO member states unanimously agreeing that they won't be using any of the usual tools / threats of sanctions they could normally bring to bear as a collective to squash violations of IP for these patents.

The US cannot act unilaterally in this regard - the WTO members would all have to agree to it for it to work effectively - but the US staking out its position may help to drive a consensus position.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#105

Post by iso1631 »

antibuddy wrote: post #96
akie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leas…

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.

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.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#106

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

snovv_crash wrote: post #100
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-i... https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://aich…

Yes, but it requires specialized machinery and ingredients which are difficult to scale on short notice.

> difficult to scale on short notice

Will it be a big deal in the long term then?

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#107

Post by robrenaud »

antibuddy wrote: post #96
akie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leas…

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.

How much of that is just undercounting of covid deaths in India?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/worl...

“It’s a complete massacre of data,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who has been following India closely. “From all the modeling we’ve done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported.”

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#108

Post by elliekelly »

ChemSpider wrote: post #79
akie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leas…

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.

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.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#109

Post by Kalium »

ChemSpider wrote: post #79
akie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leas…

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.

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.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#110

Post by josefresco »

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.

Please stop with this false narrative. American conservatives have giant and pervasive media organizations that cover Biden negatively 24/7. You're selectively choosing which "media" to criticize.
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