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Considering that the inventors are Biontech, oxford/AZ and Moderna (who won't enforce their patent), it seems like an easy decision for the US to make.
I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. I want creating a successful vaccine to be a bigger…
> I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. And it took a global pandemic for pharma to realize it so maybe they aren't totally up to the task. And it seems the consensus is that states provided much needed money to turn mrna vaccines into a real thing.
I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. I want creating a successful vaccine to be a bigger…
They were already fabulously wealthy. Moderna alone had $232 million revenue last year.
My initial, knee-jerk view was that the government is stealing private property. Bad, bad government screwing with the free market! But here we are talking about Intellectual Property and patents. Which themselves are a government-granted monopoly... Truth is patents are mostly used to stifle innovation while their original purpose was to encourage it. A company inventing something novel will have a pretty nice advan…
How does the knowledge that the USA alone put up $9 billion distributed to seven companies to aid development of the vaccines effect your position, and that the waiver is intended to be only temporary? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/08/08/feds-s... Federal spending on COVID-19 vaccine candidates tops $9 billion, spread among 7 companies
Did they use some of their other, shady, pork-like ways? Then things are even more murky and muddled and anything is allowed I guess.
Lets not forget that the actual market for these vaccines was not free but completely FUBAR: I could not buy one anywhere and at any price.
How would a "waiver" work? Last I understood about law, a country can't take away the rights of companies (or people) without their consent or modifying the patent laws. Or is this a matter where because it has to do with overseas patent protection, the US could decline to enforce certain agreements? And don't companies have patent protection in every country they seek to do business anyway?
Patents are monopolies give by States. In fact in the past, in countries like France, patents were sold to the highest bidder, like the patent for manufacturing straw baskets or ceramic containers. Basically, if you did not pay the King,or someone else paid the King more, the State will destroy your business. The modern idea of patents comes from that, adding the requirement to document an innovation instead of just…
> Hiding inventions as trade secrets acts to protect these huge multinational corporations [...] This is the reason that huge multinationals lobby so hard for strong trade secret laws and weak patent laws. This is clearly shown in Musk’s low valuation of his patents and high valuation of trade secrets.
> Trade secret protection for inventions that could otherwise be patented is bad public policy because it stifles the progress of innovation [as the knowledge does not end up in the public domain as happens when patent claims expire] and it consolidates money, markets and power into a few huge corporations [...]
The author in this article goes into more detail on the pattern (and history) of human discovery and scientific breakthroughs by using some great examples like the development of the sewing machine, as well as Musk’s purchase of the trade secrets of Maxwell Technologies.
Source: https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/19/dont-fooled-patent-pur...
The manufacture of these vaccines is not simple. It is not simply a matter of the US “waiving” a patent. However if other countries decide to participate in this performance, they may end up just manufacturing a vaccine which doesn’t work.
The virus is killing thousands per day. Do you really think a major country like India isn’t manufacturing the cure simply because of a patent?
China blatantly, openly, and proudly flaunts patents as a core part of their manufacturing economy. Why aren’t they manufacturing the mRNA vaccines, giving it away to countries that want it, and looking like the good guy here?
Because waiving the patent does nothing but generate positive press. It’s a fugazi.
I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. I want creating a successful vaccine to be a bigger…
> I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy They were already fabulously wealthy. Moderna alone had $232 million revenue last year.
That is nowhere near fabulously wealthy, especially as it is revenue and not profit.
Imho: If this becomes real, don't expect big benefits. I appreciate what Moderna did but forcing other companies to do the same may be overkill for little benefit and I wonder what the long term effect is on companies' willingness to focus on a vaccine for the next pandemic. Perhaps companies realize that waiving IP rights is good PR, or they can do it for parts of the process that is easier to scale or outsource to 3rd parties.
What happens to startups that do find an easy to copy vaccine production process and they know their IP will be taken from them? I honestly don't know but I feel that they should be fairly compensated... But what's fair. IP is just so difficult. I wonder what a world without it would look like. More company secrets, that's for sure.
[0] https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...
This seems like a performative move that does nothing at best, and destroys the credibility of mRNA vaccines at worst. The manufacture of these vaccines is not simple. It is not simply a matter of the US “waiving” a patent. However if other countries decide to participate in this performance, they may end up just manufacturing a vaccine which doesn’t work. The virus is killing thousands per day. Do you really think a…
Indian pharmacies already disregard medication patents without anybody's permission. Vaccine manufacturing is just a way more involved process than anything what an average organic synthesis shop can handle. Dealing with antibodies, proteins, plasmids, or RNA requires real factories rather than garage labs. What one need is a complete process transfer : instructions on setting up every process, along with supplies ne…
Conventional vaccine production is a highly biological process... chicken eggs being used to make the flu vaccines and so forth. I was under the impression that the mRNA vaccines are chemically much simpler -- just strands of a particular RNA sequence (swapping Pseudouridine for Uracil), encapsulated in a very clever lipid coat.
Presumably the biotech industry is really really good at manufacturing strands of RNA by now, right? I mean that seems like it's something they would've been doing every day for the last 20 years.
So are the only novel manfuacturing steps the Pseudouridine substitution and the lipid coat?