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Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

ox.ac.uk

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Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#201

Post by toshk »

dageshi wrote: post #124
toshk wrote: post #6

The press release is interesting. Not the best way to present their data. Immediate conclusion of many newspapers is "oxford vaccine is less effective then...".

Better that than to be seen to overstate its effectiveness. The worst case scenario is people refuse to take it because they think they're being lied too or manipulated in some way.

Maybe. But it's also time to compete and current headlines are not working. If the public opinion is that it's far less effective then the other 2, what is happening now, you are putting the politicians in a difficult position that want to buy your vaccine. If you dig deeper you will find results for all vaccins are pretty similar. For instance even though one of the trials with Oxford vaccine had more people with Covid sypmtoms they had no severe cases, compared to one severe case with the Pfizer trial. And the total for both are too low to make definite conclusions.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#202

Post by beagle3 »

noneeeed wrote: post #74
mcdowall wrote: post #5

The key differentiator here is the storage requirements (2-8c ‘normal refrigerator’). That’s much more accessible to developing / low GDP countries as opposed the cumbersome and expensive storage requirements of the other two.

Yeah, the fact that this doesn't even need a freezer is great news. The fact that we have three highly effective vaccines in such a short period is amazing and between them we might stand a chance of making and distributing them at the scale necessary to get things under some kind of control by August.

The safety concerns cannot be resolved yet. Effective - yes. Safe? We won’t know for a while.

Pandemrix, a flu vaccine, caused a notable uptick in narcolepsy in Sweden, Finland and likely the UK. This was not (and could not) be seen in smaller trial populations.

It is not a given that any of the covid vaccines is safe enough. Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than the disease - and these were for diseases worse than covid. Those were 50-60 years ago. Pandemrix was 10-20. I’m not sure we’re that much better on safety now to rush vaccines.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#203

Post by oblio »

refurb wrote: post #183
oblio wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have these companies provide a detailed list of expenses for researching and developing this vaccine, review that, pay it as a one time cost and THEN vacate the patent. They then get to recover their R&D expenses and make a smaller but probably decent profit from its production.

Of course. And if they spent $100M on R&D and it failed? What then? Would the gov’t pay those costs? And maybe a small profit? It’s easy to complain about Pharma profits when you ignore all the money spent that goes “poof”.

When was the last time one of there big pharma companies went bankrupt, barring massive fraud?

I'd be glad to be shown some examples, otherwise it's "privatize profits, socialize losses".

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#204

Post by ddeck »

flexie wrote: post #195
ddeck wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At $3 to $4, many countries will jump on board ASAP and stay away from the expensive vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The price difference will likely remain substantial, but in case anyone is unaware, the difference is currently greater due to AstraZeneca pledging to the sell the vaccine at cost "during the pandemic", while Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that they fully intend to profit. [1] Once AstraZeneca de…

[flagged]

To be fair, Johnson & Johnson (a US company) also made a similar pledge to AstraZeneca.

These two companies have collectively received more than $1.5 billion from the US government [1]. As I understand it, Pfizer have not taken any federal funding. They do have government purchase agreements, but they are dependent on Pfizer delivering a viable vaccine. Their partner BioNTech received German government funding:

Berlin gave the German company $445 million in an agreement in September to help accelerate the vaccine by building out manufacturing and development capacity in its home market. [2]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/health/coronavirus-vaccin...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-09/pfizer-va...

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#205

Post by mioelnir »

erikstarck wrote: post #130
bleepblorp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Will you then also pay those who put huge effort and expense in to research that was perhaps necessary but didn't lead anywhere?

BioNTech developed the vaccine now mass-produced by Pfizer. For that, they received $445m from the German government. So, as a tax-paying German citizen I can say, not only will I do that, but even better, I already did.

It also feels deeply wrong to pull the "but all the research efforts that did not lead anywhere" argument, when Pfizer did not do the research in the first place. They should get compensation for organizing the huge trial, of course; that expertise was why they were on-boarded in the first place. And nobody expects them to manufacture that stuff at loss or cost. But we should not accept public money buying them goose laying golden eggs either.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#206

Post by bjoli »

sgt101 wrote: post #196
robbiep wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really true about smallpox - it’s R is somewhere between 5-8, SARS-CoV-2 is about 2.5. Higher R0 means you need a greater percentage vaccinated population to achieve herd immunity

I think that OP meant vs. measles - R =...14??

Yes, I did.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#207

Post by WalterBright »

bleepblorp wrote: post #126
ddeck wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At $3 to $4, many countries will jump on board ASAP and stay away from the expensive vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The price difference will likely remain substantial, but in case anyone is unaware, the difference is currently greater due to AstraZeneca pledging to the sell the vaccine at cost "during the pandemic", while Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that they fully intend to profit. [1] Once AstraZeneca de…

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> Pay them their costs and not one cent more.

I prefer a system where it's very worthwhile for people to risk a lot and work hard to save my life.

If it was all about altruism, I doubt a vaccine would be developed for many more years.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#208

Post by FriendlyNormie »

kuu wrote: post #185
rixrax wrote: post #90

Is there any research or early guestimates about risks (or benefits) of getting multiple different vaccines for Covid? E.g. What if one gets this, and then later moderna vaccine? Will they fight each other, or work together or is it unknown whats going to happen?

>Will they fight each other, or work together I'm not a microbiologist, but this is not how vaccines work. The vaccines are going to put "something strange" in your body that "resembles" the virus, but it's not the virus (it's either a deactivated version of it, or some proteins which identify it...) and then is YOUR immune system the one which "attacks" this pseudo-virus. In this way, your immune system is learning…

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Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#209

Post by [deleted] »

bleepblorp wrote: post #126
ddeck wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At $3 to $4, many countries will jump on board ASAP and stay away from the expensive vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The price difference will likely remain substantial, but in case anyone is unaware, the difference is currently greater due to AstraZeneca pledging to the sell the vaccine at cost "during the pandemic", while Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that they fully intend to profit. [1] Once AstraZeneca de…

[flagged]

[deleted]
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