Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

investors.modernatx.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#61

Post by thaeli »

FriedrichN wrote: post #21

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?

Before COVID, Moderna was a startup which had never brought a therapy to market. They've managed to stay independent, instead of a marriage to one of the giants like BioNTech has. As such, Moderna's production capacity was almost entirely funded by the US via OWS contracts - so until those orders are fulfilled, almost all Moderna doses have to go to the US, and even after that Pfizer has much larger global production capacity.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#62

Post by bluGill »

Kalium wrote: post #14
joosters wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

upon request we are also willing to license our intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines to others How is that different from what they would be doing normally? Companies generally like to license their IP, it brings in lots of cash for little (extra) effort. Note that they don't claim to be offering reduced license fees in this part of their statement!

Companies like Moderna that are currently using IP are not always willing to license it. Sometimes they prefer to keep it in-house and reserved for their own use.

Sometimes. Most companies have a complex set of what they license and what they don't. In part it is based on fees, in part based on what the other will do it with it.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#63

Post by Causality1 »

phonon wrote: post #4

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's the right approach though. If you invent and make something it's morally superior to rely on secrecy rather than on people with uniforms and guns to enforce your rights.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#64

Post by achenatx »

bluGill wrote: post #60
refurb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Moderna doesn’t have much to worry about. Most of the volume of vaccine will be sold in the next 6-12 months, not enough time for another manufacturer to develop the manufacturing capability, validate it and get FDA approval. Even if new vaccines are needed for new variants, it won’t be easy for another company to catch up when the cycle are 12 months long and then you’re onto the next version.

Moderna would probably be happy to license their next vaccine to someone who did invest in a factory. The price would be probably be affordable. I'm not sure it is worth it though, only time will tell if a booster shot is needed.

booster shots for variants are almost guaranteed to be needed.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#65

Post by sumedh »

cycomanic wrote: post #5

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.

India is already producing the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#66

Post by bluGill »

achenatx wrote: post #64
bluGill wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderna would probably be happy to license their next vaccine to someone who did invest in a factory. The price would be probably be affordable. I'm not sure it is worth it though, only time will tell if a booster shot is needed.

booster shots for variants are almost guaranteed to be needed.

Everyone says that, and work is ongoing, but so far the current vaccines are holding against variants. Time will tell.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#67

Post by nerdponx »

ignoramous wrote: post #51
thefounder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>White dudes Since when did this become a race thing?

I didn't mean it in the way you put it, tbh. I meant to highlight the position of privilege the West is in. I just stated what I feel like when I see those tweets, compounded by the reports of the richer countries hoarding vaccines. Canada has procured 8 vaccines per person? Similar figures for the US, the UK, Germany and elsewhere.

You seem to have struck a nerve with this one.

I really hate the term "white fragility", but when I see posts like this heavily downvoted and flagged I can't think of a better explanation.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#68

Post by majewsky »

achenatx wrote: post #64
bluGill wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderna would probably be happy to license their next vaccine to someone who did invest in a factory. The price would be probably be affordable. I'm not sure it is worth it though, only time will tell if a booster shot is needed.

booster shots for variants are almost guaranteed to be needed.

"Their next vaccine" does not need to be a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#69

Post by ignoramous »

nerdponx wrote: post #67
ignoramous wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean it in the way you put it, tbh. I meant to highlight the position of privilege the West is in. I just stated what I feel like when I see those tweets, compounded by the reports of the richer countries hoarding vaccines. Canada has procured 8 vaccines per person? Similar figures for the US, the UK, Germany and elsewhere.

You seem to have struck a nerve with this one. I really hate the term "white fragility", but when I see posts like this heavily downvoted and flagged I can't think of a better explanation.

I know. The behaviour here also kind of explains why you couldn't trust White dudes to follow-up on their promise of diversity in tech, either. It is hard to face uncomfortable PoVs when it is easy to silence them from a position of privilege, which you and I know is going to be abused every single time. Kind of makes me sad.

On twitter, when I pointed out to a White tech bro that they were endorsing [and donating to] an Indian right-wing militant org, they simply shrugged it off as hard to understand [what's right] from afar. I mean, the org was knee-deep in anti-Muslim riots in the Capital just a year ago. The tweet and the endorsement still stands on their timeline like a slap in the face when the bro's own personal blog says they're all-in for "empathy and diversity". From my PoV, I take it that they refused to be "corrected" by a non-White dude, and that their fragile ego is hurt.

Re: Moderna waiving Intellectual Property rights for the remainder of the pandemic (2020)

#70

Post by tmslnz »

behnamoh wrote: post #44
tmslnz wrote: post #41

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/world/vaccine-patents-us-... Apparently it’s not as simple as temporarily waiving IP claims. On the one hand they don’t even own some of the rights being waived, and on the other hand they would need to do more than just waiving rights to truly support their stated goal of accelerating immunisation against COVID-19. This leaves, for me, a weird taste of a PR exercise more than a tru…

What more do you expect from them? The bottleneck - as other comments mentioned - is the supply chain.

I’d expect them to give something closer to the equivalent of a recipe than just a “list of ingredients”, as other comments have highlighted too in this thread. If you ask me how to bake a cake and I just tell you “butter, eggs and cumin” that’s not quite the same as also giving you the timings, measurements, cooking temp, etc.
Post reply on HN