Is there a github for open source medicine and pharma?
Meanwhile they apparently also had private investors for this initiative:
While Big Pharma corporations took billions of dollars in public funding to help develop vaccines from which they then reaped enormous profits while often charging exorbitant prices, Hotez and Battazzi created Cobervax with $7 million, mostly from private investors. One of these, Austin vodka distiller Tito's, contributed $1 million to the effort.
More seriously companies that take public funding to create a product should be required to treat that as an investment on par with any other private investment: giving equity and revenue back. It still annoys me that companies take public money and then create a profit from that investment, and don’t even have to pay it back, let alone actual revenue sharing :-/
> Mass Distribution of “The World’s COVID-19 Vaccine” to be Deployed to India with Other Underserved Countries to Follow
HOUSTON, TX (December 28, 2021) – Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine announced today that CORBEVAX™, a protein sub-unit COVID-19 Vaccine, whose technology was created and engineered at its Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to launch in India with other underserved countries to follow.
Dubbed “The World’s COVID-19 Vaccine”, it uses a traditional recombinant protein-based technology that will enable its production at large scales making it widely accessible to inoculate the global population. The initial construct and production process of the vaccine antigen was developed at Texas Children’s Hospital CVD, led by co-directors Drs. Maria Elena Bottazzi and Peter Hotez and in-licensed from BCM Ventures, Baylor College of Medicine’s integrated commercialization team, to Hyderabad-based vaccine and pharmaceutical company Biological E. Limited (BE).
This article is from Common Dreams, so of course they would applaud it and try to smear private companies who want to protect their innovations through patents. Personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with people making money for their advancements. I have some disagreement where public funding is involved, and what the right model should be for the public to get a return. But besides that, I also recognize that incentives matter and that capitalism has motivated hard working, talented people to bring numerous innovations to the world.
Meanwhile they apparently also had private investors for this initiative:
While Big Pharma corporations took billions of dollars in public funding to help develop vaccines from which they then reaped enormous profits while often charging exorbitant prices, Hotez and Battazzi created Cobervax with $7 million, mostly from private investors. One of these, Austin vodka distiller Tito's, contributed $1 million to the effort.