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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

#261

Post by andi999 »

oblio wrote: post #230
factsaresacred wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias. The bankrupt businesses never get the chance to become big and so you don't hear about them. However I'm certain that the category "bankrupt pharma company" is littered with examples.

How many of these small companies are a) researching Covid-19 vaccines? b) will they actually get to produce millions and millions of doses? Almost every case I know of, it's a huge company or even a state owned one. Who are we actually arguing for/against? The hypothetical "small pharma"? Keep in mind that just like for banking, due to the amount of (necessary) regulation, there aren't many small pharma companies ou…

Well Biontech wasnt big until beginning of this year.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#262

Post by Brakenshire »

snowwolf wrote: post #244
beagle3 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I wonder if because the Oxford vaccine has taken an already tested and approved vaccine approach it has a higher chance of safety than the other 2 which use a new approach that has never been approved by regulators before.

Is there precedent for the Oxford vaccine? I didn’t realise that.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#263

Post by andi999 »

anoncake wrote: post #232
WalterBright wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You don't even need altruism. Vaccine researchers want the pandemic to end like everyone else plus they're interested in vaccine research anyway.

Biontech didnt do vaccine. They pivoted because they saw a big opportunity using their approach might lead to a vaccine for Covid. So to justifies this pivot (and get the investments into the company) there need to be a possibility of big profit at the horizon.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#264

Post by bluGill »

headmelted wrote: post #200
ulfw wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because 95% efficacy is twice as good as 90%. And some people are willing to pay the $30 it costs to be 5% likelihood to have a non-functioning vaccine vs. a 10% likelihood the vaccine you just got won't work on you.

If we’re relying on solely getting immunity ourselves then we’re in really bad shape, although its not been well communicated. We need the vaccine to remove the virus from circulation, not just keep us safe from it as individuals.

We don't have evidence that is possible. There have been vaccines in the past that protected without stopping spread. We think that the reasons that happened don't apply, but we don't know that.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#265

Post by andi999 »

guipsp wrote: post #214
refurb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure you’d be willing to play that game? Let’s say your job becomes “essential”. The company pays your costs (rent, food) and nothing more. I mean, to “profit” is unacceptable.

I'm sure you realize that the rights of corporations are not the rights of the individual. I'm also sure that you realize the difference between taking a small profit, and the huge margins big pharma companies have. In addition, the pharma companies have already been compensated with massive grants.

The biontech vaccine is not from big pharma.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#266

Post by Scandiravian »

beagle3 wrote: post #197
Scandiravian wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I studied pharmaceutical sciences ten years ago, the rule-of-thumb was that it cost around 1 billion dollars from idea to the product being launched. That's only r&d costs and regulations have become stricter over the years, so I imagine the cost has risen since then

I’ve seen this number with some justification being the amortized cost of a successful product, which covers r&d and marketing but also the failed attempts that lead nowhere in between. There are plenty of 50-100M pharma startups; they wouldn’t exist if your number was right.

"Pharma start-up" is a broad definition which might not only be drug development and there might already be work done on their product before they look for funding

A company that is spun out from a PhD project in a research group, that has done a lot of the groundwork on grants will need less funding

Same goes for a start-up that for instance make non-invasive assays for diagnosis, since the documentation requirements are lower for such products

Producing something that has to be injected into humans is an entirely different league, since the amount of documentation required for such products is staggering

The cost for marketing will vary significantly depending on your definition of the word, and I suspect that it might be misconstrued as only being "commercials and paid holidays for doctors"

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#267

Post by vixen99 »

Laakeri wrote: post #138
erikstarck wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Most research is government funded

I.e., tax payer funded either directly or via debt servicing.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#268

Post by MagnumOpus »

andylynch wrote: post #179
sjwright wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion of distributing a billion copies of a vaccine at -80°C to every corner of the planet seems rather resource intensive.

It is, especially for far flung places. This stable vaccine will be very useful in places like the pacific islands, where air transport isn’t always an option.

Any island that doesn't have air transport doesn't really need the vaccine (if transit take weeks, infections on ships burn out before they get there).

Realistically, every major population can be reached in 24 hours by modern transport, and the Pfizer 5000-dose transport package keeps the temperature for 5 days.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#269

Post by Zenst »

pietjepuk88 wrote: post #174
bawolff wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought adenoviral vaccines were also relatively new. Not as new as mRNA which is bleeding edge, but still i think this would be the first time this technique would be approved for human use should it be approved.

If I remember correctly, the Ebola vaccine is the first approved vaccine to use another virus as a vector. The first one to be approved (by Merck) does not use an adenovirus, but the second approved one (by J&J) does. Note that approvals of these were late 2019 and the summer of this year. So still very new from an "approved on humans" point of view (although not _as_ new as mRNA-based vaccines). The techniques have…

Would they be virus based vaccines or phage based ones as phage's are a form of virus as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#270

Post by nemo44x »

stavros wrote: post #188
ulfw wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because 95% efficacy is twice as good as 90%. And some people are willing to pay the $30 it costs to be 5% likelihood to have a non-functioning vaccine vs. a 10% likelihood the vaccine you just got won't work on you.

Aren't people worried about the fact that mRNA vaccines haven't been deployed before? I don't see much apprehension about that generally, but a few months of testing of a brand new delivery technique don't sound that extensive to me.

The delivery technique relies on LNP (lipid nano particles) which is fairly refined and existing therapeutics use today. There are potential patent violations though (both Phizer and Moderna possibly violating Arbutus patent) but it’s unclear to me how this affects distribution.
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