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Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

reuters.com

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Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#51

Post by jdmichal »

jariel wrote: post #48
ictebres wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that they will turn into a mega company with nothing but PR, capital and marketing? I think the fact that they are so focused on medicine and science should rather be the norm in medicine. The fact that Pfizer can spin this story on their name is disturbing and dangeruous behaviour that should not be the norm.

This is a misunderstanding of what communications is. The world works on information, if you don't take a seat at table, it will be taken by someone else. The notion that 'communicating' and 'lab work' would be somehow 'competing time and/or resource pressures' overall at the company is nonsense. They are mostly separate activities. Pfizer doesn't have to 'spin' anything, they are a legit partner in the deal, they ca…

> A tiny Germany company...

Did you read the same article as me? The company started 2020 with slightly less than $5B capitalization. The owners are already top-100 wealthiest in Germany due to an earlier startup working a similar space.

As another poster mentioned [0], they also have US offices and advanced manufacturing capabilities.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25045177

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#52

Post by flohofwoe »

jariel wrote: post #48
ictebres wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that they will turn into a mega company with nothing but PR, capital and marketing? I think the fact that they are so focused on medicine and science should rather be the norm in medicine. The fact that Pfizer can spin this story on their name is disturbing and dangeruous behaviour that should not be the norm.

This is a misunderstanding of what communications is. The world works on information, if you don't take a seat at table, it will be taken by someone else. The notion that 'communicating' and 'lab work' would be somehow 'competing time and/or resource pressures' overall at the company is nonsense. They are mostly separate activities. Pfizer doesn't have to 'spin' anything, they are a legit partner in the deal, they ca…

Most German companies work like this, they even have their own moniker: "hidden champions". It appears to work just fine, if you're not selling to the public, what's the point of wasting money making the public aware of you? Also, not every company needs to be a Silicon-Valley-style startup which spouts endless PR nonsense about how their stupid internet-connected coffee machine is going to "change the world".

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#53

Post by usrusr »

jariel wrote: post #35

BionTech needs to hire a top tier marketing and PR team immediately, they are failing bad at early media mentions, press releases and coverage. Unfortunately it's probably not within their DNA and they may not realize what is happening around them. This is a monster, monster opportunity and just 'existing' won't leverage it to the extent they can - it will help them fund, hire more, expand more, do more of what they…

What would they get from that? Even more market capitalization? Unlikely, they are getting plenty as is. The second tier visibility might even help their stock price a little as some particularly uninformed speculants might still fall victim to the illusion that they know more than their peers when buying shares of "the secret behind the Pfizer vaccine".

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#54

Post by m0zg »

Everyone is excited about "90% efficacy", but nobody mentions the rate of side effects. Hmm. If this is injected into several billion people, twice into each person, wouldn't you want to know at least an estimate of the ratio before you do that? Especially with mandatory vaccination looming on the horizon.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#55

Post by supergirl »

fabian2k wrote: post #19
supergirl wrote: post #17

there are many vaccines in trials. why is this one getting so much attention? american PR machine hard at work? sounds like they already have the movie plot perfected but they haven't published an article yet

It's the first vaccine with preliminary results from a phase III trial. And the initial news are very good with 90% efficacy.

the first preliminary stage 3 results are actually from the sinovac vaccine: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sinova.... however they didn't disclose the efficacy, but only the side effects.

general efficacy is not everything anyway. according to https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... the best vaccine is one that prevents serious disease and death, which can't be shown in stage 3.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#56

Post by tinus_hn »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #9
akie wrote: post #5

This Covid vaccine was created by a German company founded by the children of Turkish immigrants. In this time of open racism and public hostility to immigration, this needs to be pointed out and repeated. It was children of Turkish immigrants to Germany.

Is that really relevant? Plenty of technological breakthroughs are made by immigrants/children of immigrants, and everyone on this site already knows this.

It’s as relevant as a black US president. Or a female Vice President.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#57

Post by choko »

akie wrote: post #5

This Covid vaccine was created by a German company founded by the children of Turkish immigrants. In this time of open racism and public hostility to immigration, this needs to be pointed out and repeated. It was children of Turkish immigrants to Germany.

It doesn't matter where they are from. This was the work of a group of dedicated individuals working together. Their national origins are irrelevant. If you want to end the "open racism", focus more on individuals and less on groups.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#58

Post by choko »

mschuster91 wrote: post #24
davrosthedalek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is news to me. German police and media normally go to great length not to mention names/personal information of suspects (and victims), a crass difference to the US.

Until 2017 this actually was a rule (not a legally binding, just the "honor code") for media, but this got changed after the AfD and other Nazis whined for years that police and media would not "tell the truth" about migrant crimes, "suppress" or "hide" them ( https://www.migazin.de/2017/03/24/presserat-aendert-richtlin... ). A very sad day for our society.

Are you saying that facts should be suppressed because someone might use them the wrong way? Serious question.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#59

Post by colaclanth »

m0zg wrote: post #54

Everyone is excited about "90% efficacy", but nobody mentions the rate of side effects. Hmm. If this is injected into several billion people, twice into each person, wouldn't you want to know at least an estimate of the ratio before you do that? Especially with mandatory vaccination looming on the horizon.

do you really think the thousands of scientists working on this just forgot to take into account the harm caused by the vaccine in comparison to covid?

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#60

Post by jansan »

geff82 wrote: post #10

The headquarter of their company is only 10 miles from my home, in a university town, full of young people. So blessed that maybe a part of the solution to this crisis comes from "my" region.

That may help offsetting the burden brought to Mainz by having Karneval and ZDF.
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