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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

#281

Post by Tinyyy »

mioelnir wrote: post #205
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?

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 org…

Nobody’s getting a goose laying golden eggs from a covid vaccine. It’s a one time, relatively low-cost vaccine that is going to go out of demand once the population is immunized.

Oh, and now there are multiple competitors in the market.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#282

Post by acqq »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #250
flexie wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The AstraZeneca vaccine also has 90 percent efficacy when used twice No it doesn't. Both dosings use two shots, and the "90%" number from the smaller dosing is from an unreliably small sample set of 33 infections -- it could easily be 70-80% by next month when more data comes in.

At the moment possibly wider error bars don’t come from just “33 infections” but more from possibly smaller number of those who received the observed treatment.

The bars are to be calculated using conditional probabilities.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#283

Post by prox »

protoman3000 wrote: post #107
prox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just from a software perspective: never install the big version upgrade. Usually the X.0 versions still has bugs that only come out at huge roll outs. I am inclined to wait a few months to let early adaptors test the vaccine. Medicine is a bit different though and every country probably has institutes checking the vaccines independently. A lot of eyes are on this probably. No company wants to be the company that botc…

That option might not be available in the short term. Spain for example aims to vaccinate almost the whole population until summer 2021. What are you going to do when you don’t think it’s version X.1 yet?

Wait.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#284

Post by guilamu »

throwawayiionqz wrote: post #50
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.

Another huge differentiator is price. At $3 to $4, many countries will jump on board ASAP and stay away from the expensive vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

Would you mind to add a source for those price estimates? Thanks!

Edit: just found a source here confirming what you said: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55040635

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#285

Post by howlgarnish »

ddeck wrote: post #117
throwawayiionqz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another huge differentiator is price. At $3 to $4, many countries will jump on board ASAP and stay away from the expensive vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

>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…

No, the main driver for the price difference is that this is a "traditional" vaccine produced using existing technology, while Pfizer/Moderna are newfangled mRNA ones.

Also, all 3 have made various noises about not making a profit etc, it's quite hard to sort out the marketing from what will actually happen at this point. Oxford/Astra have committed to supplying at least 100M doses to low-income countries for under $3 though.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#286

Post by tssva »

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]

And when the next pandemic hits no drug company will develop, manufacture and distribute a vaccine because they know there is no profit to be had.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#287

Post by usrusr »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #149
bleepblorp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I agree that in cases of overwhelming national interests patents and licensing should be ignored if they stand in the way. But: this is not a medicine made of a molecule that can be synthesised by the chemical industry. Such a vaccine requires input from the creator and then specialist equipment to manufacture. Poor countries don't have the infrastructure to manufacture and the creator labs are not going to tell you…

In the context of the vaccination rush I often wonder how military aircraft procurement was doing it when extreme r&d progress and extreme mass production were coinciding during ww2. New types were developed by companies (even the Soviets maintained a healthy competition between design bureaus) but once a type was established and in volume demand it apparently was manufactured wherever a production line could be adapted. Was that just free market subcontracting in the US or did DoD design bids come with something like a premeditated licensing option baked in from the beginning?

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#288

Post by djmips »

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…

"In the future your immune system may help the virus." I think they tested for this in the Oxford vaccine but there is an interesting case such as in Dengue where in a subsequent infection you may do worse with antibodies present. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#289

Post by Scandiravian »

jsmith99 wrote: post #257
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

It's not so much the cost, it's also the delay. At a 5% cost of capital, and a 10 year lag between R&D and final approval, your real cash flows are 40% lower due to the delay. At a 10% cost of capital, they are 60% lower. Sales also take several additional years to ramp up. This doesn't apply so much to Covid vaccines, as the time frame is accelerated and demand is already high.

The 1bn is only the out-of-pocket cost for development and doesn't factor in for instance opportunity cost. If we include everything required to develop a vaccine, I'd imagine we're looking at something north of 2.5bn

There's so many ways to calculate the cost, that I think it's more important to be aware of the assumptions made for the estimate, than the number itself (which I also failed to do in my original answer)

I think people underestimate the cost of drug development, because the numbers are so big, that it doesn't seem realistic for companies to survive

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#290

Post by ericmay »

usrusr wrote: post #279
anoncake wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Here comes my old publicly traded corporation rant: a company with a well defined owner, even with a well defined group of owners, would, given the opportunity, profit handsomely. But not overdo it. They'd rather be seen as a global saviour, not as a global ransomer. Enter public trading: the opportunity alone for global ransoming will inevitably become the projection that defines the street price for shares and once…

I don’t think this is a very good rant. Private companies have investors too, and board leadership varies from company to company.
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