There's a difference between funding research and funding development and manufacturing. No company would develop and manufacture a drug if they wouldn't make profit of it, no matter how much related research was or wasn't done using public funding.
> There's a difference between funding research and funding development and manufacturing.
The 97% figure from the study is for research and development. As for manufacturing, they would recoup that from selling the vaccine at/slightly above manufacturing cost. As the article I linked states, they didn't like that deal.
And the next time they come out with some drug or vaccine, will we also just assume most of the funds were private, until proven otherwise? Why not assume the opposite, and let them prove they're not fleecing us? Are they so trustworthy and benevolent?
Then the company receiving public finds for R&D should grand licenses royality free for anyone in that country/union to manufacture the vaccine.
You're a Chinese company that wants to produce vaccines? Estabilsh a factory in the country of origin, obtain a license from the original manufacturer and start producing.
Somehow, I doubt a bunch of incredibly motivated pharmaceutical researchers are going to be turned out into the streets, and stop doing research because a bunch of yield farmers don't have an instant IWIN moneyprinter anymore.
As customers of the vaccine to deliver to their citizenry. You might as well say Microsoft is funded by the US government (and others) because they buy Windows and Office licenses: technically true and also misleading because it’s revenue for a product they sold them for a profit. Those profits fund further R&D into new products, some of which will be sold on the private market and some of which will be sold to governments.
Your analogy doesn't hold up. Initial R&D of Covid vaccines was largely funded by taxpayers in addition to advance purchase guarantees and limitation of legal liability to eliminate any risk whatsoever. After the public assumed any and all risk, profits are now going in private pockets. Your analogy is misleading and dishonest.
> Since 2006, Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars that BARDA used to develop the scientific infrastructure to produce vaccines in response to the threat of pandemic flu. Thus, the basic research undergirding the COVID-19 vaccines was largely publicly supported.
> Recent estimates indicate that the government spent more than $900 million dollars supporting non-clinical studies and research to accelerate movement of candidate vaccines into clinical trials at companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi, Merck, and Moderna.
> Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, Sanofi, and AstraZeneca together are estimated to have received more than $2.7 billion from the federal government to cover expenses related to human trials. The bulk of money was directed at Phase III trials, which compare new treatments against standard care and where most human test costs are incurred.
The risk that you’re talking about is the “risk” of these products not being developed and working when we needed them. We probably would have been in lockdown mode for another year if we hadn’t.
Yes, they received grants. Yes also that they developed the finished products which were then purchased at a discounted rate and they received Emergency Use Audits and accelerated review processes to put them out there. Pretty much anyone that’s wanted to get their COVID vaccines and boosters has gotten them and they didn’t have to pay out of pocket at the time of injection. J&J, Moderna, Sanofi and AstraZeneca are now free to pursue other opportunities. Why shouldn’t they make a profit?
Why should they be allowed to profiteer off of life-saving vaccines in the middle of a pandemic? If any other business price gouged essential supplies to the degree these pharmaceutical companies are doing, they would likely end up in prison.
If there is a credible risk of vaccines not being developed, as you say, perhaps it's time to think about either: a) nationalizing the key players in pharmaceutical industry, or b) introducing laws (if none already exist) that allow governments to compel these companies to allocate resources to work on specific projects.
Vaccines are not a luxury item sold on a free market and we shouldn't have to rely on profit-seeking companies to develop and appropriately distribute them in the most beneficial way, it's simply incompatible with what's best for humanity during a pandemic. We've seen this play out, US & EU countries created massive stockpiles of vaccines because they had dozens of billions of taxpayer money to pay for extortionate prices while poorer countries still had 1% vaccination rates.
This has lead to hundreds of millions (!) of doses of Covid vaccines expiring and being wasted. The side effect of this is increased likelihood of mutations that has the potential to harm everyone.
> Why should they be allowed to profiteer off of life-saving vaccines in the middle of a pandemic? If any other business price gouged essential supplies to the degree these pharmaceutical companies are doing, they would likely end up in prison.
Endemic. Pandemic implies an end. They also make money off flu vaccines and measles vaccines. What’s the difference? That they can make money at all doing it is why they continue to do so and why governments don’t have to try and figure out supply and demand themselves.
> If there is a credible risk of vaccines not being developed, as you say, perhaps it's time to think about either: a) nationalizing the key players in pharmaceutical industry, or b) introducing laws (if none already exist) that allow governments to compel these companies to allocate resources to work on specific projects.
It’s not just about developing vaccines in the middle of pandemics; it’s about having an incentive to develop every type of vaccine we could possibly need, eventually, finding new applications for vaccine technology and improving the development and manufacturing processes. You need smart people, smart people want money and not just the thanks of their neighbors, ergo profits. Sure the government is a cushy job, but private sector pays more and as long as there’s profits, the “key players” as you call them aren’t limited to the ones that exist today.
> Vaccines are not a luxury item sold on a free market
I don’t know about “luxury” but they are sold on a free market.
> and we shouldn't have to rely on profit-seeking companies to develop and appropriately distribute them in the most beneficial way, it's simply incompatible with what's best for humanity during a pandemic.
The COVID vaccines set a record for research, development and dispersal and those profit seeking corporations pulled that off both because they could and they had an incentive to.
> We've seen this play out, US & EU countries created massive stockpiles of vaccines because they had dozens of billions of taxpayer money to pay for extortionate prices while poorer countries still had 1% vaccination rates.
Would you feel better about the US, UK, EU, and Israel putting themselves at the front of the line as long as they had nationalized their pharmaceuticals companies first?
My opinion is that McCarthy is the greatest living novelist. Blood meridian is one of the greatest works of English literature, and rival's Moby Dick as an epic.
> appears to capture modern day politics exquisitely.
I agree, and it captures an essential element of human nature as well.
I believe crusader kings made me better engineer. Learning that even monarchs and lord's had to influence their vassels and peers gave me a new perspective on leadership. Any leader should consider if their interests align with their allies, subordinates, and colleagues. If they do not, those groups might not obey orders, even if the command is 'legal' and from an authority.
The most effective actions for a group come not from commands by authority but mutual interest and shared values.
The Nobel Committees sometimes take quite a while to get around to deserving researchers. It is not a rapid-response organization.
The only exception I'm aware of in modern times is the high-Tc superconductor prize in Physics. Results announced in March, prize awarded in October -- it was so obviously important and trivially demonstrated as correct.
GW150914 was detected in September of 2015 -- the associated prize wasn't awarded until 2017. That award followed the very important detection of GW170817 in August 2017, which featured the critical detection of an optical signature in parallel with the GW signal.
mRNA is definitely in a similar regime today. A promising technology led to vaccines in trials by autumn 2020, and oodles of shots-in-arms by autumn 2021. In 2022, the mRNA technology is on very solid footing for having saved millions of lives. The Committees definitely could award one or more mRNA prizes this year, but they may have other prizes they need to award before a worthy recipient passes away.
The New York Times, in an article about Malone, reported: "While he was involved in some early research into the technology, his role in its creation was minimal at best, say half a dozen Covid experts and researchers, including three who worked closely with Dr. Malone."
Addon:
I do not promote that Malone get Nobel price (just first google hit).
What I meant to ask was what Karinó did that is special related to all other work in this field.
I know nothing about this, but this passage in the Wiki article that you linked points at some controversy:
>While Malone promotes himself as an inventor of mRNA vaccines,[1][7] credit for the distinction is more often given to the lead authors on the major papers he contributed to (such as Felgner and Wolff), later advances by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman,[3][19] or Moderna co-founder Derrick Rossi.[13] Ultimately, mRNA vaccines were the decades-long result of the contributions of hundreds of researchers, including Malone.[3][20] The New York Times, in an article about Malone, reported: "While he was involved in some early research into the technology, his role in its creation was minimal at best, say half a dozen Covid experts and researchers, including three who worked closely with Dr. Malone."[7]
My opinion is that all the above have strong CEOs who aren't reactive.