Law The Battles Over The Intellectual Property Rights on COVID Vaccines

[Arkain2K]

this.

the longer we wait and let poor countries go unvaccinated the more likely it is that the virus mutates into other forms that the present vaccines do not work against.

profit motive is absurd and immoral in this case.

Try reading the thread better, you might actually find out the actual reason why India don't have enough vaccines.

Waiving patents (especially when over half of them are already granted licenses to India) does absolutely NOTHING to fix the Indian government's massive fuck-up. It's a red herring to distract from the real issue: India did fuck all to increase the SII's production capacity and improving supply chain. In fact, Indian politicians thought they already beat the pandemic and don't even need vaccines, until it's too late.

 

[terrapin]

Try reading the thread better, you might actually find out why India don't have enough vaccines right now.

but it isnt just india friend its a lot of poor countries that are not getting access to vaccines and these are the places that will foment worse versions of the virus.

it is batshit crazy not to open production up to all facilities set up to do so and the only reason for it is profit motive and that is just not a relevant concern for this pandemic.

 

[lifelessheap]

Indian government's problem:

SII: India vaccine shortage will last months because Indian government failed to prepare for second wave
By Shweta Sharma | May 3, 2021

Serum Institute of India's Adar Poonawalla
​

Indian government's proposed "solution":

India asks WTO to wave intellectual property rules for COVID vaccines
By Ashutosh Pandey | 04.02.2021

UPDATE: Biden got roped in by Modi:



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My take: Ofcourse India would lead the charge, consider that they have become the world's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer by mass-producing generic copies of the medicines and vaccines developed in the West that are no longer under patent protection.

Now they are going one step further and ask the WTO to wave the Intellectual Properties rights for all vaccines, in the name of humanity in poor countries (and a healthy dose of profit selling innovations from the West - without any related R&D costs or licensing fees - to all the countries that don't have the capabilities to produce them).

Note: India already have the licenses to locally-produce the AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax vaccines, but their government chose to sit on their hands and didn't place orders with the Serum Institute of India until 2 months ago, when their country is already swirling down the toilet bowl.

Unsurprisingly, the countries where billions in public and private funding were invested into the COVID vaccines' research and helped bring them to the world in record time are resisting India's demand to get their intellectual property rights for free, because 1) it does absolutely nothing to improve India's neglected supply chain, and 2) if there's no one willing to invest in innovations, there wouldn't be anymore innovations.

Capitalism rules.

 

[Arkain2K]

but it isnt just india friend its a lot of poor countries that are not getting access to vaccines and these are the places that will foment worse versions of the virus.

it is batshit crazy not to open production up to all facilities set up to do so and the only reason for it is profit motive and that is just not a relevant concern for this pandemic.

You truly believe those poor countries in the Third World have the technologies and facilities to produce the cutting-edge mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna locally if their patents are suspended, when even First World nations like Canada and Australia could not?

C'mon man.

 

[terrapin]

You truly believe those poor countries have the facilities to produce mRNA vaccines bybPfizer and Moderna, when Canada and Australia couldn't?

C'mon man.

no you dolt but there are lots of facilities that can but arent being allowed to. meanwhile the virus mutates and changes and this will come back to bite us on top of being cuntishly immoral.

 

[Arkain2K]

no you dolt but there are lots of facilities that can but arent being allowed to. meanwhile the virus mutates and changes and this will come back to bite us on top of being cuntishly immoral.

Who? And not being allowed by whom?!

Name a single reputable vaccine facility in the entire world that meets the WHO's category-A lab requirement and was unfairly denied licensing by AstraZeneca, which is currently being produced locally under license to AstraZeneca's exact production standard in no less than 15 countries around the world, from Australia to India to Korea to Brazil. Hell, even a lab in Ghana wants to join in the AZ fun, but their own government isn't willing to invest yet.

When it comes to the cutting-edge MRNA vaccines, the number of countries capable of producing them can be counted on one hand, and every MRNA vaccine factories on the face of the planet have been running at maximum capacity for months now. So what are these mysterious top-of-the-line MRNA facilities built overnight that no one knows about?!

This reminds me of a shitty article that the Washington Post ran a few months ago about some unknown labs in Bangladesh "standing by to help producing MRNA vaccines but no one responded", and then later we found out the Bangladeshi labs that were "ready to make MRNA vaccines" don't even meet the global standard required to make old-school vaccines like AstraZeneca yet, and their own country's Health Minitry is just now asking the WHO for Category-A lab certification.

There is no such thing as "a lot of facilities that can but not allowed to" produce MRNA vaccines. In fact, there isn't any on this planet. If there were, Pfizer and Moderna would have already jumped all over them so they can fulfill their major backlogs!

Uninformed people seems to think that production technology and know-how just fall out of the sky and there will be an influx of quality vaccines the moment vaccine patents are suspended, made with rainbows and bottled by unicorns. That's because they're thinking with their heart instead of their head.

If this free-patents-for-all idea being pushed to the WTO upends the current Licensing -> Building -> Training -> Production Supply -> Production Support system that ensures every vaccine dose of the same brand name are made with the exact same ingredients that meets the same exact quality standards, no matter which country or continent they are made in, just you wait and see all the damages being done when sub-standard counterfeits from no-name labs starts flooding into the Third World market, carrying the same brand names as the real deal that are no longer protected by international Intellectual Property laws.

 

[JDragon]

I think this is a mistake. We are not talking about a simple generic. Production capacities will not magically appear.

Plus, the next pandemic will inevitably come. What then? Which company is going to develop the magic potion if they are not allowed to cash in?

 

[JSN]

Once you begin production in one of those crap countries you’re effectively waiving your IP rights anyway.

 

[Videer]

As far as Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer mRNA vaccines go I highly doubt that India or anyone else for the matter could just to start churn out these vaccines. There is no idle manufacturing capability to use and probably about zero people that can do it to hire.

 

[Teppodama]

If Covid is so bad that all of the restrictions and such were necessary around the world then every nation should have the formula and any nation that has a problem with that should have sanctions placed against it. Fuck profit.

 

[degoj99]

Totally. We should capture scientists and make them work as slaves and seize pharma companies' assets and make them invent solutions to medical problems without compensation because ethics.

 

[Sano]

Finally they waved the patent rights! This is great news!

Edit: Man, the world is a jaded place.

 

[evergreenrider]

You truly believe those poor countries in the Third World have the technologies and facilities to produce the cutting-edge mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna locally if their patents are suspended, when even First World nations like Canada and Australia could not?

C'mon man.

Yes. Those countries are generally where we outsource our manufacturing

 

[JDragon]

If Covid is so bad that all of the restrictions and such were necessary around the world then every nation should have the formula and any nation that has a problem with that should have sanctions placed against it. Fuck profit.

I can understand that sentiment and share it to an extent. But then we will have to solve the next pandemic (which, let us be honest, will likely come rather sooner than later) without support from pharmaceutical companies. That is possible, but it implies building public structures to do so, which will come at a hefty price.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

It would seem the reason this vaccination got out so quickly, was a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
if you take away that pot of gold, good luck getting them do that again, if needed.

 

[Crom Cruach]

Pfizer didn’t take any tax dollars IIRC anyways don’t know about Moderna

Pfizer didn't do any R&D they are just a manufacturer.

Their vaccine (aka BioNTech vaccine) was developed with government money. From German government and the EU.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

*waive

 

[Arkain2K]

Yes. Those countries are generally where we outsource our manufacturing

Yeah, for stuff like socks and shoes.

If there's one lesson learned from this pandemic, it's that there's an over-reliant on a handful of countries capable of manufacturing medicines for the entire region, and for good reason: it costs billions just to build a vaccine manufacturing facility, billions more for the factories to make the ingredients, and then billions for the bottling/packaging facility. And that's not factoring in the know-hows that can only be achieved either by billions more in research and development, or taught and trained properly under licensing terms.

This problem increases exponentially when it comes to the cutting-edge MRNA vaccines that require ultra-cold environment every step of the way. The entire world supply depends on a handful of state-of-the-art facilities in the U.S, Germany, U.K, Belgium, and Switzerland.

That means even half of the heavy hitters in the G7 are not technologically-advanced enough to make the MRNA vaccines that India is demanding the patents to be suspended, as if that's going to change anything in the supply chain.

Other First World countries better start investing in their own MRNA facilities now, and pay Pfizer-BionTech and Moderna to teach them how. Being able to make the latest and greatest medicines for your own citizens right at home (rather than fighting for scraps) is a matter of national security, in my opinion.

As far as Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer mRNA vaccines go I highly doubt that India or anyone else for the matter could just to start churn out these vaccines. There is no idle manufacturing capability to use and probably about zero people that can do it to hire.

Put it this way: even a First World pharmaceutical powerhouse like France openly admits that they are only technologically-advanced enough to fill MRNA vaccine bottles for Pfizer and Moderna.

So yeah, this patent-suspension will do absolutely nothing good, besides opening a giant can of fake vaccines.

 

[Arkain2K]

Pfizer didn’t take any tax dollars IIRC anyways don’t know about Moderna

Pfizer didn't do any R&D they are just a manufacturer.

Their vaccine (aka BioNTech vaccine) was developed with government money. From German government and the EU.

For the historical record, Fosun Pharma was the first to invested $135 million in BioNTech last March (plus footing the bill for Chinese clinical trial) in exchange for the Greater China distribution rights.

A month later, Pfizer is the second investor to put in $185 million up-front last April, with a total of $748 million of investment if key targets are met, plus they would foot the bill to develop and set up the entire global logistics/cold supply chain, global clinical trials, and global vaccine production/distribution worldwide, which came out to be around $2 Billion that Pfizer paid out of their own pocket to get the ball rolling.

Pfizer began their global clinical trials last May, only then did the European Investment Bank approved BioNTech's €100 million loan last June (debt financing that they will have to pay back), then the U.S gave Pfizer $1.95 Billion in early purchase order last July (money that they'd only have to pay back if the clinical trial fails), and Germany gave BioNTech a €375 million grant in September.

In all honesty, the actual R&D for the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine are already completed by the time the governments slowly jumping on the wagon. What their investment did was helping the scaling-up of the production facility, and it would be completely fair to say that the E.U did the least: all they gave was a bank loan, and their huge order didn't come all the way until the end of the year, which is the reason for the early supply crunch, when the demands now far outstrips the limited production capacity built with the early investment money. Had they forked over the money 6 months earlier, a lot of those European whining could be avoided because Pfizer then wouldn't have to upgrade their factories right in the middle of their production run in order to boost their output capacity.

In all likehood, BioNTech would probably be in the same boat as German's CureVac today and still limping along with their clinical trials now if Pfizer didn't agree to essentially taking on most of the financial risks and heavy-lifting early on, and we got lucky that the vaccine candidate that Pfizer-BioNTech co-developed went through the trials with flying colors (whereas the BioNTech-Fosun candidate tanked in the Chinese trials and is never heard from again).

Here's a recap of the BioNTech-Pfizer-Fosun partnership, which deserves its own documentary one day:

https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/163243665/

 

[Starck]

Was going crazy every time I saw that "wave".