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Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#91

Post by [deleted] »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #75
teekert wrote: post #38

Moderna already waved their rights last year [0]. But the production of such vaccines is not easy and I believe that an organization grows and learns as a whole as a solution so complex is developed. Consequently it is not easy to replicate what they do. I think at best this puts a cap on the vaccine's price since "in theory" given enough financial incentive the vaccine can be reproduced. That's my theory, feel free…

> But the production of such vaccines is not easy Oh? " "Manufacturing mRNA vaccines is surprisingly straightforward. Compared to conventional vaccine production, mRNA factories are: * 99 - 99.9% smaller * 95 - 99.7% cheaper * 1,000% faster" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27061674 https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-i... https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://aich…

[deleted]

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#92

Post by einpoklum »

baybal2 wrote: post #28

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…

> Indian pharmacies already disregard medication patents without anybody's permission.

Good on them. I wish patents on medication were disregarded universally.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#93

Post by credit_guy »

How is this supposed to work really? The President is not above the law (as Justice Kagan famously put it 2 years ago). He can't just suspend the patent law. He can ask the Congress to revoke the law, but that would be going forward, it would not act retroactively (as per the Article 1 of the Constitution). Let's just say the President issues some type of Executive Order to overrule the patent protections for the Covid vaccines. Would the companies not sue? Would they not go all the way to the Supreme Court? Would all the courts agree with the President that he can just make the law go poof when he feels there is a moral obligation to do so?

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#94

Post by magnio »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #75
teekert wrote: post #38

Moderna already waved their rights last year [0]. But the production of such vaccines is not easy and I believe that an organization grows and learns as a whole as a solution so complex is developed. Consequently it is not easy to replicate what they do. I think at best this puts a cap on the vaccine's price since "in theory" given enough financial incentive the vaccine can be reproduced. That's my theory, feel free…

> But the production of such vaccines is not easy Oh? " "Manufacturing mRNA vaccines is surprisingly straightforward. Compared to conventional vaccine production, mRNA factories are: * 99 - 99.9% smaller * 95 - 99.7% cheaper * 1,000% faster" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27061674 https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-i... https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://aich…

From "Myths of Vaccine Manufacturing"[0]

> These will be special-purpose bespoke machines, and if you ask other drug companies if they have one sitting around, the answer will be “Of course not”. This is not anything close to a traditional drug manufacturing process. And this is the single biggest reason why you cannot simply call up those “dozens” of other companies and ask them to shift their existing production over to making the mRNA vaccines. There are not dozens of companies who make DNA templates on the needed scale. There are definitely not dozens of companies who can make enough RNA. But most importantly, I believe that you can count on one hand the number of facilities who can make the critical lipid nanoparticles.

Also see this article[1] which details the supply chain of mRNA vaccines as well as the bottleneck of lipid nanoparticle assembly. These mRNA vaccines also have strict requirements for storage/distribution, preventing them from wider usage.

[0]: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/my...

[1]: https://blog.jonasneubert.com/2021/01/10/exploring-the-suppl...

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#95

Post by gugagore »

makomk wrote: post #53
throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

Yeah, and if Trump was still in power I have zero doubt the media would call him out on what a cynical stunt this is - but Biden is in charge now, and that makes a huge difference to how they report on everything.

I think it's ridiculous to say "they, the media" here when media in the US is so often blatantly partisan. I don't believe it's difficult to find media that calls out Biden.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#96

Post by antibuddy »

akie wrote: post #71
teekert wrote: post #38

Moderna already waved their rights last year [0]. But the production of such vaccines is not easy and I believe that an organization grows and learns as a whole as a solution so complex is developed. Consequently it is not easy to replicate what they do. I think at best this puts a cap on the vaccine's price since "in theory" given enough financial incentive the vaccine can be reproduced. That's my theory, feel free…

All these interesting theoretical arguments while people are dying in droves... India was EXPORTING vaccine to the UK until not so very long ago. Maybe they don't have the capacity to produce the mRNA vaccines, but they most certainly have the capacity to produce viral vector vaccines such as AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson. I strongly believe it is our moral duty to buy-out or invalidate the IP of (at the very leas…

In India currently die ~2 people per 100k per week on Corona. In Germany it was over triple that in December. The total Corona mortality in India is also way way lower as in Germany (16.842/100k vs 100.35/100k).

I am not sure that the moral panic is even justified.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#97

Post by watwut »

gugagore wrote: post #95
makomk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and if Trump was still in power I have zero doubt the media would call him out on what a cynical stunt this is - but Biden is in charge now, and that makes a huge difference to how they report on everything.

I think it's ridiculous to say "they, the media" here when media in the US is so often blatantly partisan. I don't believe it's difficult to find media that calls out Biden.

No, it is not. He is too centrist for left media. And right media hate him.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#98

Post by throwaway4good »

apexalpha wrote: post #74
throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

The US put an export ban on basically everything regarding vaccines, very early on. If you look at the amount of vaccines produced , the US and EU are fairly close to each other. The difference in Vaccine rollout comes from the fact that the EU exports vaccines to other countries while the US does not. As a European I would've been in favour of more export controls, but a total ban seems to go too far. Why should 18…

The EU approached the vaccine production with hopeless naivete while the UK and US approached it like they were at war.

Biden speaks in a nicer manner but he is still doing the policies of Trump's America First.

IMHO we in Europe should return the favour and start working with the Chinese on vaccine production. They are the only ones with an industrial capacity comparable to the US.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#99

Post by [deleted] »

beckman466 wrote: post #46
tobessebot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They rightly fear that in 2-3 years, when the pandemic is likely over everywhere and other people have figured out how to commercialize the IP, they won't be the only ones producing their vaccines. This isn't going to help India or anyone in the short term and there'll be more than enough doses for every person on Earth by next year. Why should they not retain the IP rights to make a profit on new generations that ne…

> This isn't going to help India or anyone in the short term Why not? I’m not hearing a clear argument or evidence to support that withholding the patent recipe wouldn’t save millions of lives? India now has a very high number of cases. As it stands now, your argument just sounds to me like: “yes human lives, but... profit“. Please could you elaborate on your argument and/or provide examples of what you’re describing…

[deleted]

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#100

Post by snovv_crash »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #75
teekert wrote: post #38

Moderna already waved their rights last year [0]. But the production of such vaccines is not easy and I believe that an organization grows and learns as a whole as a solution so complex is developed. Consequently it is not easy to replicate what they do. I think at best this puts a cap on the vaccine's price since "in theory" given enough financial incentive the vaccine can be reproduced. That's my theory, feel free…

> But the production of such vaccines is not easy Oh? " "Manufacturing mRNA vaccines is surprisingly straightforward. Compared to conventional vaccine production, mRNA factories are: * 99 - 99.9% smaller * 95 - 99.7% cheaper * 1,000% faster" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27061674 https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-i... https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978947723546625 https://aich…

Yes, but it requires specialized machinery and ingredients which are difficult to scale on short notice.
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