Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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> Moderna is facing growing pressure to share this type of know-how. Last week several U.S. Democractic senators and congress members released a letter pointing out that Moderna got a massive infusion of U.S. taxpayer funds to help develop its vaccine. At least $1 billion was for the research component alone. These officials contend that the Biden Adminstration can and should use language in the government's contracts with Moderna to force the company to divulge its process.

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> WHO's Friede is less convinced that there will soon be sufficient COVID vaccine supply.

> But even if that's the case, he says it will still be enormously valuable to have cracked the code of mRNA production on behalf of low and middle income producers.

Hard to feel sorry about a biotech's inability to export IP protection capitalism during a pandemic because of statements they themselves made.

EDIT: "All in all, U.S. agencies committed about $2.5 billion to help develop Moderna’s vaccine and buy doses, according to the New York Times."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/24/fac...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/health/Covid-moderna-vacc...

Feels like everyone's "square" if Moderna continues to sell doses to countries that can afford it and countries that can't produce bootleg versions, but I am open to arguments as to why that wouldn't be the case based on all available data.

The US may have gambled with the $2.5 billion dollar investment but it obviously paid off hugely and Moderna delivered essentially perfectly on their promises. I can understand why from their perspective they feel like they have already contributed quite a bit to ending the pandemic, at a very good price for the US taxpayer, and don't want to give away all their secrets.

I'm not defending the moral argument, but I think in terms of ROI you could only argue that Moderna got underpaid by the US government based on what they delivered.

I am just speculating wildly here, but I would think Moderna is worried about losing a competitive advantage to the "bootleggers" down the road, when producing boosters, and other mRNA vaccines.

Once the genie is out of the bottle those companies will be international competitors with your trade secrets probably forever- they might be able to lock it back down in the US market but good luck convincing other states to shackle their pharmaceutical industry that way.

The way I understand it, every single new infection is a tiny little lottery ticket for the virus to mutate. I don't particularly care about Moderna's profits. I want the vaccine to be as widely available as possible to anyone who wants it at a price (free) they are willing to pay.

If Moderna makes a few bucks along the way, that's great. If Modern a can't survive without massive profits, I am OK if they go away as well.

What do you think will happen during the next pandemic if the companies who managed to come up with a vaccine go bankrupt from this one?

These companies didn't get the funding to make the vaccine from previous inventions, but from government funding, so this seems to be an unreasonable argument.

I agree. Paying them to invent the vaccine was a good idea. Paying them to mass produce and deliver the vaccine is a waste of money.

> I want the vaccine to be as widely available as possible to anyone who wants it at a price (free) they are willing to pay.

Then why don't you advocate for the US to buy those doses and send then around the world. Why don't you start a fund that buys vaccines and sends them around the world?

You want it all at zero cost to yourself. Now you can understand why Moderna doesn't want to be footing the bill for the entire world.

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