Off Topic Coronavirus

[sb_73]

US drug company Moderna has come up with a Covid vaccine that they claim to be 95% effective. Unfortunately the UK didn't place any advance orders with Moderna. The EU Commission has options for 160m doses, but our government - presumably filled with Brexit hubris - chose not to take part in the EU scheme.

Don’t actually blame them in this case. It’s a good looking result, but it’s using the same new approach as the Pfizer drug, and Moderna has no track record of delivery, great looking pipeline but no marketed products as yet - makes sense to go with Pfizer, Moderna is a fairly risky bet, and it’s not clear to me how they will manufacture hundreds of millions of doses without buddying up with one of the big companies. A risky looking bet when you are spreading your cash over a very large number of potential vaccines. Of course, you look a tit when it doesn’t come off, which is why I suppose the government has bought 5 million doses (enough for 2.5 million people).

The RNa approach looks to be bringing spectacular results, if the Oxford vaccine works I’m pretty sure it will be much less effective on paper. On a population level it doesn’t really matter, the idea is just to make it hard for the virus to spread, and to keep the symptoms mild if it does.

 

[qprbeth]

Don’t actually blame them in this case. It’s a good looking result, but it’s using the same new approach as the Pfizer drug, and Moderna has no track record of delivery, great looking pipeline but no marketed products as yet - makes sense to go with Pfizer, Moderna is a fairly risky bet, and it’s not clear to me how they will manufacture hundreds of millions of doses without buddying up with one of the big companies. A risky looking bet when you are spreading your cash over a very large number of potential vaccines. Of course, you look a tit when it doesn’t come off, which is why I suppose the government has bought 5 million doses (enough for 2.5 million people).

The RNa approach looks to be bringing spectacular results, if the Oxford vaccine works I’m pretty sure it will be much less effective on paper. On a population level it doesn’t really matter, the idea is just to make it hard for the virus to spread, and to keep the symptoms mild if it does.

Agree with Stan in this.
We backed the other horse (Pfizer) in the mRNA race...it was a better bet. We got it right

No problem with this....but have seen Matt Hancock has said we have 5 million doses of this Moderna vaccine today (2.5 million people)

It is a shame that we are not in the EU though...they have 120 million doses which will be distributed throughout as to their individual populations

 

[kiwiqpr]

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[kiwiqpr]

Agree with Stan in this.
We backed the other horse (Pfizer) in the mRNA race...it was a better bet. We got it right

No problem with this....but have seen Matt Hancock has said we have 5 million doses of this Moderna vaccine today (2.5 million people)

It is a shame that we are not in the EU though...they have 120 million doses which will be distributed throughout as to their individual populations

as a percentage would the uk have got more or less doses going with the eu

 

[Star of David Bardsley]

as a percentage would the uk have got more or less doses going with the eu

We’d have got none because they hate us and just want our money, obvs.

*** packet maths though we’d make up about 1/8 of the population.

 

[kiwiqpr]

We’d have got none because they hate us and just want our money, obvs.

*** packet maths though we’d make up about 1/8 of the population.

about 10 million then

as boris had the virus recently why is he self isolating
is he not immune now

 

[sb_73]

Leamington Spa to get one of the two new mega labs, one for England, one for Scotland. 2,000 new local jobs, yay!

Bit of a kick in the teeth for the Northern Powerhouse though. Leamington and Warwick are also represented by a seemingly invisible Labour MP. Something amiss with the Tory crony machine here. Should have got Robert Generic to allocate these, he never misses an opportunity to reward people who vote for him and his mates.

 

[Stroller]

Agree with Stan in this.
We backed the other horse (Pfizer) in the mRNA race...it was a better bet. We got it right

No problem with this....but have seen Matt Hancock has said we have 5 million doses of this Moderna vaccine today (2.5 million people)

It is a shame that we are not in the EU though...they have 120 million doses which will be distributed throughout as to their individual populations

This was my point, Beth. We had the opportunity to join the EU scheme, but declined. Our 5 million doses, bought after the trials, will undoubtedly cost way more per dose than the EU's advance order.

 

[Stroller]

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[mapleranger]

Canada has a deal with Moderna.as well as EU member states. Not sure about Moderna, though as i understood, perhaps in error, that ther test that yielded the 94.5.% effective rate was actually pretty small and I also understood that Moderna was a good deal more expensive than Pfizer. On the up side, if does not require -70°C for storage. I am continuing to look for confirmation of this but for right now, I am liking Pfizer.

 

[sb_73]

This was my point, Beth. We had the opportunity to join the EU scheme, but declined. Our 5 million doses, bought after the trials, will undoubtedly cost way more per dose than the EU's advance order.

Evidence that they have increased the price?

Moderna will be looking for $50-60 per person for their jab. Oxford/AZ are reportedly selling at $3-4, Pfizer at around $20. The pricing is very sensitive in order to ensure that poorer countries can afford it. For all these treatments it is likely that rich countries (yes we still are) will be subsidising the poorer ones to make sure everyone has access, because vaccines won’t work comprehensively without very high global coverage, unless we never travel again. Then doubtless we will be faced with parallel importing, where places with higher prices try to sneakily buy cheaper stuff sold to poorer countries. But in essence isn’t this a good thing, health wealth redistribution? Dare I say it, a bit socialist?

Moderna is a loss making company that will sink or swim on this result, but it is very sensitive to the potential negative responses to exploitative pricing. They have already said that they will not enforce patent protection in India and China, so cheaper copies (cheaper because zero research costs involved) can be made there. In fact of course, these countries do this all the time by ignoring patent law, and I don’t really blame them.

The biggest differentiator might well be time - how quickly does one place get the jab compared to others. The Pfizer supply for next year is already nearly all committed to ‘rich’ countries. No one is getting any Moderna stuff until spring, the Oxford/AZ version, if effective, should I think, be easier to make and they promised they were manufacturing ‘at risk’, even though the amount they are making seems to have gone down a lot since the initial announcements.

AZ, Moderna, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson and many others have accepted taxpayer money (mainly American taxpayer money) in their development efforts. As far as I can tell Pfizer did not.

https://www.ft.com/content/80f20d71-d7eb-4386-b0f2-0b19e4aed94d

 

[ELLERS]

Our 5 million doses, bought after the trials, will undoubtedly cost way more per dose than the EU's advance order.

And you know that? Are you now in marketing for a drug company?

 

[Stroller]

Evidence that they have increased the price?

Moderna will be looking for $50-60 per person for their jab. Oxford/AZ are reportedly selling at $3-4, Pfizer at around $20. The pricing is very sensitive in order to ensure that poorer countries can afford it. For all these treatments it is likely that rich countries (yes we still are) will be subsidising the poorer ones to make sure everyone has access, because vaccines won’t work comprehensively without very high global coverage, unless we never travel again. Then doubtless we will be faced with parallel importing, where places with higher prices try to sneakily buy cheaper stuff sold to poorer countries. But in essence isn’t this a good thing, health wealth redistribution? Dare I say it, a bit socialist?

Moderna is a loss making company that will sink or swim on this result, but it is very sensitive to the potential negative responses to exploitative pricing. They have already said that they will not enforce patent protection in India and China, so cheaper copies (cheaper because zero research costs involved) can be made there. In fact of course, these countries do this all the time by ignoring patent law, and I don’t really blame them.

The biggest differentiator might well be time - how quickly does one place get the jab compared to others. The Pfizer supply for next year is already nearly all committed to ‘rich’ countries. No one is getting any Moderna stuff until spring, the Oxford/AZ version, if effective, should I think, be easier to make and they promised they were manufacturing ‘at risk’, even though the amount they are making seems to have gone down a lot since the initial announcements.

AZ, Moderna, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson and many others have accepted taxpayer money (mainly American taxpayer money) in their development efforts. As far as I can tell Pfizer did not.

https://www.ft.com/content/80f20d71-d7eb-4386-b0f2-0b19e4aed94d

I don't know what we will be paying (I've searched unsuccessfully), but I heard on the wireless earlier that Moderna were touting their product for $37 a dose back in August. Why would they sell to us at the same price after successful tests? Surely the extra buying power of the EU would secure more advantageous deals also.

 

[Star of David Bardsley]

I don't know what we will be paying (I've searched unsuccessfully), but I heard on the wireless earlier that Moderna were touting their product for $37 a dose back in August. Why would they sell to us at the same price after successful tests? Surely the buying power of the EU would secure more advantageous deals also.

We have the advantage of a booming currency.

Also we won the War.

 

[sb_73]

I don't know what we will be paying (I've searched unsuccessfully), but I heard on the wireless earlier that Moderna were touting their product for $37 a dose back in August. Why would they sell to us at the same price after successful tests? Surely the buying power of the EU would secure more advantageous deals also.

The price they were touting at was based on the assumption of successful tests. They get nothing if the tests fail. It’s a potentially crowded market, and it looks like Moderna have a plus in effectiveness, but a competitive minus in price and when their vaccine will actually be available. If the AZ one comes in at 70% effective and at a fraction of the price, that’s the one we will all be getting first.

The pricing of medicines and access to them is too tedious to go into here. But I do know something about it. Companies will of course try to maximise their returns wherever possible, but this is more often about the number of people who get access to the medicine than the publicly quoted price. 10 patients at $11 a prescription is better than one patient at $100 a go, in an extremely crude and vastly oversimplified way.

 

[ELLERS]

We have the advantage of a booming currency.

Also we won the War.

You never won anything. It was done by brave soldiers before you were born. They died so you could bitch about everything British.

 

[Stroller]

The price they were touting at was based on the assumption of successful tests. They get nothing if the tests fail. It’s a potentially crowded market, and it looks like Moderna have a plus in effectiveness, but a competitive minus in price and when their vaccine will actually be available. If the AZ one comes in at 70% effective and at a fraction of the price, that’s the one we will all be getting first.

The pricing of medicines and access to them is too tedious to go into here. But I do know something about it. Companies will of course try to maximise their returns wherever possible, but this is more often about the number of people who get access to the medicine than the publicly quoted price. 10 patients at $11 a prescription is better than one patient at $100 a go, in an extremely crude and vastly oversimplified way.

I suppose the laws of supply and demand will ensure that as more successful vaccines appear, the lower the price will become. I just don't see why we would deny ourselves the enhanced buying power of the EU.

 

[Star of David Bardsley]

You never won anything. It was done to brave soldiers before you were born. They died so you could bitch about everything British.

It’s a bit fascist to constantly link your warped political views to patriotism and thus paint the other side as the enemy of patriotism, IMO.

 

[sb_73]

I suppose the laws of supply and demand will ensure that as more successful vaccines appear, the lower the price will become. I just don't see why we would deny ourselves the enhanced buying power of the EU.

I’d guess that would be for ideological reasons, plus perhaps we had already committed ourselves to six different vaccines in advance, and bet on Pfizer for the RNA version, and balked at trying to back every horse in the race.

I reckon that, given its likely price, the Moderna version and possibly the Pfizer one will be reserved for certain sections of the population. The regulators and payers will pore over the trial data and try to spot sub populations where it is most effective. Or just say - this is for those most vulnerable only, the rest of us can have something cheaper and slightly less effective.

If you were in the EU commission and had to decide how to distribute this vaccine, what criteria would you use? Simply divide by population, or take into account things like prevalence of the virus, demographics etc? Italy has an very old population and a lot of virus they could benefit more than, say, a young Ireland. Should they get more vaccine, or earlier access?

 

[ELLERS]

It’s a bit fascist to constantly link your warped political views to patriotism and thus paint the other side as the enemy of patriotism, IMO.

Have we sorted out this 'rat testicles' vaccine yet? I will let you try it first Watford.