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Comment by checker659 | Hacker News Reader

What stops pfizer from selling directly to customers?

As someone who works in medical devices, there's huge sections of standards referring to confirming that software and devices reach the intended user untampered and analysing the risk of selling to an untrained customers and things like that.

The long and the short of it always boils down to, it's not worth the risk to sell to individuals. Because if something goes wrong and someone is injured or killed, the regulatory agencies are going to come down on you like a ton of bricks

I would assume similar practices exist for pharmaceuticals.

Lack of supply. They’ve already pre-sold all they could make to governments.

Presumably they pre-sold based on estimates of their production. I would not be very surprised if it turns out they can make 10% more than they committed, and auction this off. And would expect hospitals treating Saudi princelings & the like to win such an auction.

But does anyone actually know what these pre-sale contracts look like? They must have some wiggle room in case production doesn't go as well as planned... are there just penalties for late delivery to specific customers, or explicitly tied to total production, or did they literally sell places in the queue, or what?

Last I'd heard, they overestimated how much they could produce and presold more than they could actually deliver at least at first.

Companies that have a vaccine are aware of image. They know that the world is watching, and this is a big marketing opportunity. They will make a profit, but long term goodwill is more valuable than any profit they could make selling to billionaires, so I doubt anything will go to auction.

The hospitals treating Saudi princes are real hospitals. So they can win auctions if it comes down to that, because they are invited to them while the rest of the black market isn't. I don't think real vaccines will come to auction though.

There is one thing left: vaccines that have approval issues. Any vaccine that is somewhat effective by not enough (The Oxford vaccine at 65% efficiency is questionable). The Russian vaccine. Any of many that haven't started phase 3 trails yet. Any vaccine that has safety issues. All are candidates for someone to "leak" to the underground. You will have to consider the risks, but it might be worth it to get it now and then in a year when the better vaccines come to you get that too.

Yes, an actual open auction would be astonishingly bad PR! But quietly, on the side? Maybe I'm a cynic but I struggle to believe the billionaires won't find a way.

If not from the main production... they had 43538 phase III participants, there must be leftovers, which won't appear in the books as real production... maybe you can route those to important donors of your philanthropic arm, or something? Run some "further trials" in a variety of small clinics, including those catering to visiting Saudis?

Plus actual black market stuff of course, I wonder if any of their refrigerated shipping boxes have gone missing? And, as you say, things like the Russian vaccine are probably already available at a price.

The risk of being caught trying to pull that off as a company are too big. Though there might be some individual who does something against company policy, but it is hard to keep such things secret if they involve more than a couple people.

Probably the billions that governments have paid for their place in the queue

India alone has 759k millionaires. Assuming each has a family of four, and they’re willing to pay just $500 for a two shot course on an exclusive basis (say). That alone will be make pfizer about 1.58 billion dollars.

There are 13555k millionaires outside of Europe and US. The 1.9 billion paid by the US government for 100million viles pales in front of what pfizer could earn by catering to the rich.

So, again, my question stands, why wouldn’t pfizer sell directly to customers? What binds them to just deal with governments alone? I ask this as a humble non-millionaire (just to clarify that I wouldn’t benefit from such a scheme in any way) :)

They are already sold out. There’s no spare. And yes they can sell to millionaire but states purchases millions of doses at a Time, not 5.

Do you honestly think Pfizer would come off well (PR wise) if they put millionaires in the front of the queue for cash? At a time when vulnerable people are dying? The $1.58bn wouldn’t be worth sinking their entire brand, not even close.

Pfizer doesn't have to do anything. The vaccines will be sent all over the world, all destined for reputable hospitals where they're intended to be used for elderly transgender orphans with pre-existing conditions working in COVID ICUs. However, some shipments will mysteriously fall off the truck on the way there, and will resurface at private hospitals for the elite who can and will pay large quantities for them.

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