Covid 19 variants

[Skatastrophy]

Stop making these companies out to be the good guys.  If were operating in normal market conditions, of course they should be due compensation.  But that isn't what this situation is.  Pfizer and Moderna are each slated to make over $18-24 billion dollars this year, each!

And the mRNA technology research has been funded by American taxpayers via the NIH, and then we preordered millions of doses from them.  What a deal!  Talk about government subsidized success!  Next up, they get to gouge the very people who paid for the R&D, production, and absolute success of their company with booster shots that will make them billions.  Publicly funded risk, private reward.  Truly the American dream.

I know you're a smart dude, but I doubt you listened to the program.  Everything you're talking about was covered.

This is Moderna's first product they've taken to market ever. They are not the big bad guys you're looking for. They just IPO'd with great tech, and thank goodness they got enough partnerships in place to scale production.

I feel bad for BioNTech that Pfizer stole their thunder. Another excellent young company saving the butts of billions.

I don't really have a dog in the IP fight besides IP/Patent law being broken.

[Coleman]

Stop making these companies out to be the good guys.  If were operating in normal market conditions, of course they should be due compensation.  But that isn't what this situation is.  Pfizer and Moderna are each slated to make over $18-24 billion dollars this year, each!

And the mRNA technology research has been funded by American taxpayers via the NIH, and then we preordered millions of doses from them.  What a deal!  Talk about government subsidized success!  Next up, they get to gouge the very people who paid for the R&D, production, and absolute success of their company with booster shots that will make them billions.  Publicly funded risk, private reward.  Truly the American dream.

I know you're a smart dude, but I doubt you listened to the program.  Everything you're talking about was covered.

I don't see this as a good guys or bad guys thing. I just see it as incentivizing companies to do what is most beneficial. That's really it.

You take away IP protections this time, who is going to jump in to save the day the next time?

I am not some total free market libertarian. Quite the opposite. I just think there are plenty of other levers (Defense Production Act, price controls, etc.) the government can use without ripping away IP protections.

[Hards Alumni]

I don't see this as a good guys or bad guys thing. I just see it as incentivizing companies to do what is most beneficial. That's really it.

You take away IP protections this time, who is going to jump in to save the day the next time?

Literally anyone that wants to make the $18-24 billion that Moderna and Pfizer are walking away with before this year is out.

This is Moderna's first product they've taken to market ever. They are not the big bad guys you're looking for. They just IPO'd with great tech, and thank goodness they got enough partnerships in place to scale production.

I feel bad for BioNTech that Pfizer stole their thunder. Another excellent young company saving the butts of billions.

I don't really have a dog in the IP fight besides IP/Patent law being broken.

They're the bad guys in the same respect that they're having their cake and wanting to eat it too.  I'm not talking about putting them out of business, obviously.  It isn't as if stripping them of their patent information would make their company worth zero.  I'm talking about doing what is right for humanity instead of doing what is right for the people holding stock in Moderna and Pfizer.  They can still make a metric manure load of money from producing and selling vaccines and mRNA therapy. 

Just trying to save some human lives instead of stock portfolios.

F*ck me, right?

[Coleman]

Literally anyone that wants to make the $18-24 billion that Moderna and Pfizer are walking away with before this year is out.

Except that if anyone else could manufacture it due to the IP being public, they wouldn't have made that much.

Also, Moderna's revenue was $1.9 billion in Q1. Not sure where you are getting $18-24 billion this year.

[Coleman]

Just trying to save some human lives instead of stock portfolios.

This is the $hit that drives me nuts. It is dishonest. I've said a million times it is about producing the best results for society. Not stock prices.

You can disagree with my argument. But to characterize it as purely based on a profit motive is bull$hit.

[Coleman]

They're the bad guys in the same respect that they're having their cake and wanting to eat it too.  I'm not talking about putting them out of business, obviously.  It isn't as if stripping them of their patent information would make their company worth zero.

IP is the lifeblood of pharma. If you don't have patent protections, you have nothing. You take that away from Moderna and they go bye-bye tomorrow. This is the only drug they've brought to market. What a great way to treat an innovative small company that literally saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

[cheebs09]

Realistically, how quickly could another company ramp up production and meet the quality standards if they got their hands on the IP today? Would it make a big difference?

Also, I thought that there wasn’t a ton of money in the annual boosters in the future. By then there’s more competition and less urgency that the government is in a better position to negotiate prices.

[Hards Alumni]

I never ever said get rid of all patents, sheesh. 

Coleman, again, brother, my information is from the program.  If you're not going to listen to it, then why comment about it?  I guess I have to curate timestamps.  https://play.acast.com/s/f5b64019-68c3-57d4-b70b-043e63e5cbf6/b6a35c8f-f6fb-4f0e-8973-6bab8e608ab7?seek=1015

I don't give two sh!ts about Moderna as a company.  They could go under tomorrow and someone else would replace them in a heartbeat.  Do you not believe that?  Honestly? 

IP is the lifeblood of pharma. If you don't have patent protections, you have nothing. You take that away from Moderna and they go bye-bye tomorrow. This is the only drug they've brought to market. What a great way to treat an innovative small company that literally saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

And the $2 billion they've already made in Q1?  (which is hilarious, because Q1 ended 3/31... long before the vaccine rollout was wide spread) They go belly up with $2 billion in revenue?  As a 'small' company?  You do realize how utterly insane this sounds, right?  Furthermore, they are way ahead of anyone else in this race.  It isn't as if we release the patents today someone is going to be manufacturing mRNA vaccines next month.  They have the time and the resources to be ahead of everyone now that they've cashed in on the American taxpayer.  Meanwhile, what does the American taxpayer get for their contribution?  A wealthy private company, that wouldn't have the current head start had they not gotten the cash infusion from the American people.

Meanwhile, you're defending them making a ton of money, being able to set any price they want for boosters for 10 years?  Get outta here.  Go back to K street and get a job lobbying if that's what you want to do.

Next, you're going to defend insulin price gouging and epinephrine pen price gouging.

Except that if anyone else could manufacture it due to the IP being public, they wouldn't have made that much.

Also, Moderna's revenue was $1.9 billion in Q1. Not sure where you are getting $18-24 billion this year.

Moderna said it sees full-year vaccine sales of around $19.2 billion, based on signed contracts, a figure that doesn't appear to be affected by any decision on patent waivers that may come later this quarter from the World Trade Organization.
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/moderna-misses-revenue-forecast-boosts-2021-vaccine-sales-outlook
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MRNA/analysis/

Avg revenue estimate 18.31B

HELL IF YOU WANT A COMPROMISE JUST GIVE MODERNA AND PFIZER EXCLUSIVITY RIGHTS IN THE USA.  God knows we're fine with overpaying for our necessary medication already and used to be gouged.

[Coleman]

Realistically, how quickly could another company ramp up production and meet the quality standards if they got their hands on the IP today? Would it make a big difference?

It’s a good question and a fair question.

Ironically, it would probably benefit the “big pharma” firms the most since they would have the manufacturing technology and capacity to quickly scale up once the IP was made public.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Well this seems potentially not good if accurate:

Cyprus Finds Covid-19 Infections That Combine Delta and Omicron
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-08/cyprus-finds-covid-19-infections-that-combine-delta-and-omicron

"A strain of Covid-19 that combines delta and omicron was found in Cyprus, according to Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology.

“There are currently omicron and delta co-infections and we found this strain that is a combination of these two,” Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday. The discovery was named “deltacron” due to the identification of omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes, he said."

[pbiflyer]

Granted I am a math guy.

But given numbers thrown around, omicron 70% of infections and cases up 5 fold means Delta isn’t subsiding, just omicron is rising.

[pbiflyer]

Well this seems potentially not good if accurate:

Cyprus Finds Covid-19 Infections That Combine Delta and Omicron
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-08/cyprus-finds-covid-19-infections-that-combine-delta-and-omicron

"A strain of Covid-19 that combines delta and omicron was found in Cyprus, according to Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology.

“There are currently omicron and delta co-infections and we found this strain that is a combination of these two,” Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday. The discovery was named “deltacron” due to the identification of omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes, he said."

It’s not accurate. Likely a contamination.

https://mobile.twitter.com/PeacockFlu/status/1475928935745699840

Tom Peacock
@PeacockFlu
Small update: the Cypriot 'Deltacron' sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination - they do not cluster on a phylogenetic tree and have a whole Artic primer sequencing amplicon of Omicron in an otherwise Delta backbone.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

It’s not accurate. Likely a contamination.

https://mobile.twitter.com/PeacockFlu/status/1475928935745699840

Tom Peacock
@PeacockFlu
Small update: the Cypriot 'Deltacron' sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination - they do not cluster on a phylogenetic tree and have a whole Artic primer sequencing amplicon of Omicron in an otherwise Delta backbone.

Good news. Although I suspect that guy is just making up words and phrases!

[forgetful]

Good news. Although I suspect that guy is just making up words and phrases!

Not sure if this is teal. But he is not making up words and phrases.

A side aspect, he is saying that this report is likely contamination, but I'm pretty certain if you asked him, that it would be likely that a "deltacon" variant is just a matter of time, and it is just too early to identify it in populations.

His explanation for why this is likely a contaminant is pretty solid.

[pacearrow02]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicron-makes-bidens-vaccine-mandates-obsolete-covid-healthcare-osha-evidence-supreme-court-11641760009?st=wm9kr5bv8ia86tl&reflink=article_copyURL_share

In this opinion piece it makes reference to data saying that after 90 days a vaccinated person is MORE likely to catch Omicron.  Can this be possible or even make scientific sense?

[Skatastrophy]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicron-makes-bidens-vaccine-mandates-obsolete-covid-healthcare-osha-evidence-supreme-court-11641760009?st=wm9kr5bv8ia86tl&reflink=article_copyURL_share

In this opinion piece it makes reference to data saying that after 90 days a vaccinated person is MORE likely to catch Omicron.  Can this be possible or even make scientific sense?

"Opinion"

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicron-makes-bidens-vaccine-mandates-obsolete-covid-healthcare-osha-evidence-supreme-court-11641760009?st=wm9kr5bv8ia86tl&reflink=article_copyURL_share

In this opinion piece it makes reference to data saying that after 90 days a vaccinated person is MORE likely to catch Omicron.  Can this be possible or even make scientific sense?

Look up who the authors are and you’ll know.

[pacearrow02]

Look up who the authors are and you’ll know.

A Nobel prize winner for discovering HIV, is that a bad??

He uses actual data though to make the argument and with the Pfizer CEO coming out today saying the current version of the vaccine does “little to nothing” in protecting against Omicron I’m not exactly worried about the author as much as clarification on the data.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

A Nobel prize winner for discovering HIV, is that a bad??

He uses actual data though to make the argument and with the Pfizer CEO coming out today saying the current version of the vaccine does “little to nothing” in protecting against Omicron I’m not exactly worried about the author as much as clarification on the data.

He’s been wrong about COVID from the beginning and once wrote a paper entitled “Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences." (They aren’t.)

Complete whack job teaming up with an anti-vaccine lawyer.

[pacearrow02]

He’s been wrong about COVID from the beginning and once wrote a paper entitled “Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences." (They aren’t.)

Complete whack job teaming up with an anti-vaccine lawyer.

He also discovered HIV

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

He also discovered HIV

You apparently graduated from Marquette. Peaking early doesn’t mean anything.

[pacearrow02]

You apparently graduated from Marquette. Peaking early doesn’t mean anything.

That’s actually a pretty good one!! I’d argue my peak was well before MU days though.

[ATL MU Warrior]

That’s actually a pretty good one!! I’d argue my peak was well before MU days though.

Sad!

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Look up who the authors are and you’ll know.

Nice catch. We should definitely listen to an anti-vaxxer about the effectiveness of vaccines.

Once again, the troll is here only to spread bullsh!t.

[pacearrow02]

Nice catch. We should definitely listen to an anti-vaxxer about the effectiveness of vaccines.

Once again, the troll is here only to spread bullsh!t.

How bout the CEO of Pfizer?  If not him who do you listen to?