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My understanding used to be that this will not change much on an immediate basis since the nano-particle delivery system + its manufacturing chain are quite complicated and not easily scalable. Does anyone know if this is not the case?
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/moderna-patents-covid-19-... "Moderna’s Pledge Not to Enforce the Patents on Their COVID-19 Vaccine Is Worthless" tldr...all the good stuff are trade secrets.
That article> This “invulnerable exclusivity” is harmless enough when it protects secret soda formulas and hamburger mystery sauces. It’s less cute when it blocks countries from using their legal right to manufacture and import lifesaving medicines. This is introduced as if random countries have an established legal (rather than moral) right to manufacture these items covered by patent. I wasn’t able to find (in the…
There is certainly a legal right to manufacture things that are not currently under patent.
My understanding used to be that this will not change much on an immediate basis since the nano-particle delivery system + its manufacturing chain are quite complicated and not easily scalable. Does anyone know if this is not the case?
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/moderna-patents-covid-19-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26941571
TL;DR: Patents these days are effectively worthless at reproducing the invention, they only function as a legal way to stop competitors.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/moderna-patents-covid-19-... "Moderna’s Pledge Not to Enforce the Patents on Their COVID-19 Vaccine Is Worthless" tldr...all the good stuff are trade secrets.
I'd be interested to know if that's been tested. For example, have any other companies or countries proposed making the Moderna vaccine at all? And what happened? Co-operation? Grudging support? Full-on obstruction?
I know making a vaccine is a little different than making strawberry jam, but why is there so little supply of the Moderna vaccine given this situation?
This looks like a good gesture from Moderna, but I do not think it will be of much help for most the developing world since the low temperatures needed for the storage of the vaccine are not feasible for the distribution infrastructure of these countries.
The shippers work for short term storage ( I expect that's why my county had a delivery of Pfizer early and not another since).
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/moderna-patents-covid-19-... "Moderna’s Pledge Not to Enforce the Patents on Their COVID-19 Vaccine Is Worthless" tldr...all the good stuff are trade secrets.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/moderna-patents-covid-19-... "Moderna’s Pledge Not to Enforce the Patents on Their COVID-19 Vaccine Is Worthless" tldr...all the good stuff are trade secrets.
So yes the patents don't disclose how to actually produce the vaccines, but that's actually not the problem (see the published work where people already reverse engineered the vaccines). The problem is that patents still prevent people knowledgable in the field from actually making vaccines, because of the threat of expensive litigation.
That's quite big (and great) news. Many people have been arguing that this should be done so that labs in e.g. India could legally produce the vaccine in particular for countries outside the rich western countries. This is also much in the interest of the rich western countries, because quicker immunization worldwide reduces the risk of new mutations. Let's see if the others will follow.
October 8, 2020