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DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

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Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#21

Post by ls612 »

shigawire wrote: post #17
jonplackett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it’s possible to calculate a rate of return on that. How much worse off would we be now without mRNA vaccines? I doubt anyone would be complaining about blood clots.

Seems like China did fine with more conventional vaccine technologies. I'm glad we have another tool in the toolbox, but I am missing why the mRNA vaccine tech was necessary for COVID.

The chinese vaccines are mostly inactivated coronavirus vaccines and are only 50-60% effective. We are seeing countries which relied heavily on them such as Chile and the Seychelles having large and sustained outbreaks because they aren't effective enough to stop the spread. They probably do fairly well against mortality though.

I'd say we would be in an incredibly worse position if we only had J&J and Astrazeneca in the west. In the US the pandemic is over now and we have only vaccinated about half of people with the mRNA shots. I strongly doubt we would be normal again now if we had not had those.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#22

Post by mempko »

A big myth often told in the tech world that things are developed by startups using private equity. We often forget the large and dynamic public sector. Biggest "VC" in the world is DARPA and other US government entities.

EDIT: I meant to say, it's a big myth the tech industry tells the public.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vmception wrote: post #16
Egidius wrote: post #4

This is why tax avoidance is a bad thing. Governments can accelerate innovation with stimulations like this.

US government would never balance its budget even if tax compliance was 100% and the tax rate was 100%. The math does not check out and the taxes fund nothing except the interest payments on international debt. The things that were going to get funded will still get funded, because they are funded by the debt issuance and the continued market tolerance for US government debt issuances. So, no, tax avoidance has pract…

> only limit to budget allocations is the market tolerance of the debt and currency

Sovereign debt buyers and FX traders strongly consider a states' ability to collect taxes.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#25

Post by paxys »

Egidius wrote: post #4

This is why tax avoidance is a bad thing. Governments can accelerate innovation with stimulations like this.

$25 million went to research that produced a life-saving vaccine and averted (or at least abated) a global crisis. Meanwhile the F-35 program at a lifetime cost of $1.7 trillion has produced basically nothing.

People's biggest criticism of taxation is all the government corruption and wastage that it enables, and IMO that is completely valid.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#26

Post by phh »

That's definitely pretty cool, and I really wish that European's funding had a track record anywhere close to DARPA (though I don't really complain, Europe funding isn't too bad)

Does someone have information about the size of Moderna back then? TFA says they had 144 patents, so I guess they were already pretty big?

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#28

Post by ardit33 »

mempko wrote: post #22

A big myth often told in the tech world that things are developed by startups using private equity. We often forget the large and dynamic public sector. Biggest "VC" in the world is DARPA and other US government entities. EDIT: I meant to say, it's a big myth the tech industry tells the public.

It is not a myth, but well known. Startups take something that is already researched, and further develop it and commercialize/monetize it.

I think the myth might be more in the layman/general population, but most people in the tech world know this.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#29

Post by vmception »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23
vmception wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US government would never balance its budget even if tax compliance was 100% and the tax rate was 100%. The math does not check out and the taxes fund nothing except the interest payments on international debt. The things that were going to get funded will still get funded, because they are funded by the debt issuance and the continued market tolerance for US government debt issuances. So, no, tax avoidance has pract…

> only limit to budget allocations is the market tolerance of the debt and currency Sovereign debt buyers and FX traders strongly consider a states' ability to collect taxes.

more aptly: the ability of the state to pay its interest now and in the future.

the state is in a balance to avoid a death spiral of its currency: creating more because it purchases less due to market selloff of the currency.

the main point is that it is highly leveraged and tax collection is merely servicing a small single digit percentage of the capital, and therefore the further sliver from tax avoidance is having even tinier percentage of an effect on how what the budget is and could be. the state also has other revenue sources.

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