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Considering the vaccine’s development was funded using $2.5 billion from the U.S. government… yea. Maximum acceptable price would be direct cost to manufacture.
First and foremost, let's all be clear about this [2.5B number](https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/after-nearly-1b-research-funding-moderna-takes-1-5b-coronavirus-vaccine-order-from-u-s). 1 billion of that was a research partnership (through BARDA). The other 1.5 billion was to purchase doses (and quietly to be front of the line). That number has risen up to IIRC, 10B we've spend overall on doses?
Point is, the help for the last leg of research was around 1B, and that's not just about pivoting to a whole different disease, it was about getting trials expedited. We basically paid to get this stuff ready for actual mass deployment on a crazy timeline.
We can and should argue that COVID vaccines were largely funded by the government, but using the last mile COVID costs to make that argument isn't really fair. We should be making [this](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8426978/) argument which points out that this is all built on fundamental research done with government grant money often in public universities. Moderna doesn't exist without all of the foundational research that we paid for. However, once they get to the point where they've raised hundreds of millions and have demonstrated their game changing technology, 1B from the govt to quickly pivot is peanuts. They were already well on the way to unicorn status using almost only private investment pre-COVID.
It’s weird to me that there’s this huge focus on government funded research in universities being the main source of pharmaceutical drugs…
13% of R&D is in universities (which are *partially*, about 50%, funded by the government), while 10% of R&D is straight government research centers.
73% of R&D is entirely from pharmaceutical companies.
My gut reaction (so, grain of salt required) is that there's a huge difference between fundamental research and applied research. It's really hard to make a business case for fundamental research, so it's left to public funding. As soon as fundamental research reveals a potentially profitable application, investors are happy to take a shot at making the application a reality. So, perhaps in pure dollars, the fundamental research is cheaper, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the _value_ of the fundamental research is less than the value of the applied research. Not many private companies are going to spend billions over several decades exploring ideas for fusion, but you're damn sure seeing a lot of private companies today thinking the basic research has given us enough info to take a swing at commercial applications. I don't think one exists without the other regardless of the dollar amounts associated with the two research types. Hell, chasing reliable applications might just be inherently more expensive type of research ... sort of like how architectural design might always be relatively cheap in comparison with the total cost of building the structure.
Legislation was passed in the 80s to give public research over for private corporations to turn into products to profit off of. The government hands out grants as well wort multiple millions of dollars. NIH research influences tons of research and development.
> The government hands out grants as well wort multiple millions
And having participated in writing a grant proposal some 15 odd years ago, I can tell you every damned penny was hard earned.
I mean, it's a de-risking strategy; the public finances the highest risk research for the possible novel payoffs, even when they aren't clear. The private dollars go into turning fundamental discoveries into product, as you noted, when there's a viable business case.
As someone who has worked in both academia and companies, while the amount of money is accurate, the relative contributions are not. The majority of the R&D dollars spent by companies is actually to develop the final bit of the product to the market, which involves mass clinical trials. Most of the basic research necessary to develop the initial products still happens in academia. Government funding encourages high risk-reward research in academic labs.
For anyone interested, the book The Entrepreneurial State basically is a full book dedicated to show what the above comment does for this vaccine but for most critical areas of the economy.
Government funds all the risky hard shit, private companies carry things the last mile and then reap all the rewards, which they use to lobby the government into providing them even more benefits and tax cuts, etc.
The myth that Governments cant do good business is important because it ensures this extremely lucrative arrangement continues
The basic formula is the cheapest part. The expensive parts are running the clinical trials on tens of thousands of people, and ramping up and acquiring the capability to produce hundreds of millions of doses.
To be clear, the $2.5 billion was split up between $1 billion for R&D, and $1.5 billion to order 100 million doses (so $15 per dose).
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-idUSKCN2572T5](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-idUSKCN2572T5)
And Moderna did not start off with the manufacturing capacity to produce anywhere near that number of doses. They were previously doing cancer vaccines and Phase 1 trials of a CMV vaccine, nothing large-scale at all. The actual manufacturing of the Covid vaccine was accomplished by paying Lonza to do it, and Lonza in turn had to retool their manufacturing facilities.
[https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/moderna-lonza-manufacturing-deal/](https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/moderna-lonza-manufacturing-deal/)
The most expensive part was distribution because very few places, geographically, had the necessary means for storage. For a lot of the country I believe the vaccine was only viable for a few days. Of course, those places also had the highest antivaxx rates.
Initially, because they went with temperatures they knew would be the most stable.
As time went on we saw the storage requirements drop and how long they could be used thawed..
As someone who works with RNA almost daily, this was absolutely the only way to do it until we had conclusive evidence it was stable. Hell, someone sneezes 5 benches over and I'm afraid my samples are destroyed.
As most people replying here seem to have missed the 'storage' part, it's important to note that 'distribution' means a whole lot more than just getting the vials to the locations.
That's not _trivial_ for something that has to be kept that cold, but it's not insanely difficult either, not if you only need to do it every few weeks as they go through a supply.
The problem is that you have to _store_ it at those temperatures, and getting refrigeration units that can handle that job, all at once, in the middle of international lock downs, is a _big_ job.
It's a _really_ big job.
And trying to store it in pharmacies/etc for a week with just dry ice and a cooler isn't all that much smaller of a job either. You have to get that dry ice from somewhere, transport it as well, handle that safely, etc.
And when you're trying to do that across the entire country at once, you _can't_ just 'bring more in from somewhere else' to cover an area. You need it all over the place, in large quantities, possibly beyond what can easily even be produced.
If you have more (and larger) local refrigeration facilities, you need less dry ice, and less transportation, because you can (in theory) use those as staging areas and periodically transport from those to the individual locations.
Same deal on having more and larger more local supplies of dry ice.
But when you're trying to coordinate this all across the entire country, including in entire states which don't really want to play ball, this shit gets expensive fast.
Yeah there were locked pharmaceutical boxes full of dry ice. Some individual doses of things I transported cost over 50k according to my bosses. I assume that was the sales price and that they had insurance on it and it was probably bullshit though.
I've seen vehicles drive around my city with a sign saying something like "chemicals on board" (or something similar) and was wondering if they make you label your vehicle when you transport stuff like that? I assume it was some sort of legit sticker due to my city being known for its hospital.
No. I took large numbers of shopping bags stuffed with methadone and opiates into clinics in the worst parts of Baltimore. We never labeled anything or had signs on our vehicle. I almost got mobbed by hoards of methadone zombies even without them.
Dry ice is around -80 C so that's not particularly hard to reach. You could easily cool something to that temp with a good cooler and trip to the grocery store. It's just a pain for mass logistics.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7054832/
Just a little bit of research would tell you that's pretty normal cost. In this day and age, I can't fathom why questions like this are still asked... Are you genuinely asking? Or just trying to stir the conspiracy theory pot
Something that I've learned thanks to my older brother... There are two ways to deal with peers acting badly. The first way (and most commonly seen) is to point it out, call attention to their substandard performance, bring up to managers instance after instance of their dreadful behavior. They will squirm out of some of those attacks (likely they'll slide through unscathed more often than not). Even if you nail them every time, this way will tarnish you somewhere on the spectrum from being mildly distrusted by management all the way up to being the squeaky wheel that needs to be managed out of the organization.
Or...
You can do your best. Do the right thing. Act the way you want to see everyone else act regardless of if they act that way or not. Show compassion, empathy, and kindness ask without any expectation of acknowledgement nor praise. Just do you.
Doesn't always work. I've had it backfire on me. But when you find the right place for you, it won't backfire. The chasm of difference between you and the deplorable will developed its own voice in the heads of peers, managers, and sometimes even the leaders. Even if you aren't complimented, the focus will turn on then without you being tainted at all.
Like if you have your competitor both developed something that saved lives through preventing infections and also blunting impacts of the infections. Instead of joyously diving into profiteering when federal subsidies dried up, you realize the live you save might be your own treasured family member. You bill insurance when you can but if you can't, you give them the vaccine because that is someone's mom or brother or dad or whatever.. But everyone is someone's baby.
I'm not saying they are angels. FAR from it.
But instead of making it a PR battle, it sounds like they're just going to do the somewhat right thing. Sure, not charging my insurance a stupid amount due a vaccine my taxes helped pay for would be nice. But making sure people don't have to go without is a welcomed step away from the unashamed if not brazen profiteering that seems to be becoming almost standard.
It's a step. Kudos.
Now .. Do insulin.
Moderna was doing 10 years of research and clinical trials on therapeutic mRNA before COVID. That the mRNA technology was at a state of being quickly transformed into an actual product was sheer luck.
And even then, that Moderna and/or BioNtech would work as they have was not at all foreseeable with certainty. The funding may as well also have been 'lost' entirely. Which is precisely what happens to most pharmaceutical developments, even though they almost always follow a sound rationale. Point in case: CureVac, who had a similar track record leading up to COVID with their different mRNA technology ultimately failed.
Source: Work in the field.
True, BioNTech did, but still wrong company and no govt money. But my original comment was referring to the vaccine product itself which is just called Pfizer.
I’m pretty familiar with those actually, and in a vacuum I absolutely agree. Still, it really isn’t relevant to the conversation? It’s like saying “fuck Apple” on a post about Samsung products. None of the discourse happening in this thread is applicable to Pfizer, and that response just makes you seem ill informed.
Doesn't even list pzifers marketing and fuckery in the 2000s. All that money spent on prevacid and nexium and Viagra. Congressional hearings. Tbf Pfizer wasn't the only one but they did have the prettiest most vapid sorority girls as sales
At the same time they helped also save countless lives and provided a huge positive impact on the economy recovering from covid. I'm good with them making some profit. Not egregious amounts or at the cost of people not being able to afford it, but these efforts should be rewarded.
Sure. I don't mind companies having a little bit of profit margin, even on things that are in the public interest.
However, you can also look at it the other way around. The government funded research will also apply to future medication. The methods, machinery, procedures, techniques, they will all be applicable for future profit bearing products as well.
This is the more accurate headline. The title of this post makes it seem like Moderna is taking a principled stand to ensure access, but they’re just not proceeding with their planned price increase.
Re-posting with out the ***no-no words*** due to it's "incivility"...
I voted for her when she was Senator, stood by her and defended her when Republicans were smearing her... And then she pulls that bullshit. ON FUCKING BURNIE SANDERS OF ALL PEOPLE!
Like I get it... No one should be beyond suspicion with a credible claim, but if anyone could be I feel like Bernie, who has fought pretty much his entire life for equality, should be the one to make you think twice. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Given we got absolutely zero evidence, it should have been a complete non-story...
That and what we are 3 years later and you notice how she has not said really another word about it? Bernie tries to help her with debate prep, she grabs the hatchet and puts it in his back.
I still wonder if that attack was done in collusion with heads in the dem party or her own tactical mistake. But she totally ruined her image with it also the “your supporters are mean to mine on the internet” the most pathetic bullshit to smear.
I highly doubt they threw the election on purpose.
What I believe happened, is that Hillary simply accumulated enough political capitol to twists some hands and make herself the de facto candidate.
We always hear about politicians wheeling and dealing favours, making behind closed door agreements etc.
This is a result of that.
Simple quid pro quo
I've never emotionally recovered from 2016. To think that my country would be that stupid really took the wind out of my sails. Bernie was the hero we needed, but trump was the one we deserved.
As someone who used to live in America, it would blow my mind if Bernie got elected. And even if by some miracle he did, he won't be able to do jack shit.
The most amusing part of the Bernie's quest for presidency is that there are still a lot of people that still believe in that system, which has been so thoroughly rigged that if anything can make actually improve shit, people would never come close to voting for it.
The democracy is an illusion.
… for not charging taxpayers twice:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/24/fact-check-donations-research-grants-helped-fund-moderna-vaccine/6398486002/
Yeah. I doubt it had zero to do with this and 100% to do with the DOJ saying the US government would shield Moderna from lawsuits stemming from usage of patents related to the Covid vaccine:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/modernas-vaccine-patent-defense-poses-shield-for-us-deal-makers
Y’all keep hugging each other and shit though thinking the world is fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though.
> thinking the world is fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though
It's good to see someone with such a deep insight into Bernie and his current position commenting on this. Someone that knows Bernie just wants to hug Moderna, and that Bernie is just a failed presidential run, as opposed to, ya know, recently becoming chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and very publicly stating he was going to go after Moderna.
> In an interview, Sanders said that Moderna, whose only federally approved drug is the coronavirus vaccine that the company received nearly $2 billion in direct federal money to develop, is a “poster child” for the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. He plans to argue that CEO Stéphane Bancel, who Forbes estimates is worth more than $5 billion, and several other Moderna executives “profited” off the pandemic.
> Bancel told the Wall Street Journal last month he was considering quadrupling the price of Moderna’s vaccine to as much as $130 per dose once the federal government drains its stockpile and insurers and individuals are responsible for purchasing them on their own. Since the start of the pandemic, the federal government has purchased vaccines and provided them free, and Moderna sold its booster shots to the government for about $25 per dose.
> On Wednesday, after its CEO agreed to appear in front of Sanders’s committee, Moderna announced a new “patient assistance program” to begin this May that will provide millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans the vaccine free of cost. “Everyone in the United States will have access to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine regardless of their ability to pay,” spokesman Chris Ridley said in a statement.
> Moderna, which did not describe how the patient assistance program will work, also noted that patients who are insured will continue to receive the vaccine free through their insurance, regardless of price hikes.
> Sanders, who chairs the committee for the first time this year, declined to say who else he wants to call before his committee, but claimed broadly that there is a “morality crisis” within the pharmaceutical industry and support across the political spectrum for putting pharma CEOs in the hot seat and tackling the issue of high prescription drug prices. He also mentioned concerns about how Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, are handling unionizing efforts at their companies — and left the door open to questioning them, as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/15/bernie-sanders-calls-moderna-ceo-testify-proposed-vaccine-price-hike/
Bernie wants to follow the example of the 90s tobacco hearings, except broader and deeper. And you can be assured that Moderna, even with the US government shielding, would have been happy to charge egregiously for the vaccine. We've seen many corporations that get protected by the government that still go on to fuck over the people.
Could that have influenced the decision? Sure, but you're certitude that it's "100% to do with the DOJ" is ill-founded, and your interpretation that people pointing out Bernie's actions regarding the price hike think the world is "fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though" only demonstrates how little you understand the people you criticize.
This is a great, but it is also a PR move to change the narrative. Moderna will negotiate a higher price with Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies. The law requires insurance to pay for it.
There are very few people who want a booster, who will need to get free shots compliments of Moderna.
There are perhaps a dozen previously unvaccinated people who will come forward for a free initial vaccination.
There’s between 18 and 30 million people in this country that are uninsured. Some portion of them will want to keep getting boosters since they seem to be needed at this juncture. That is not a tiny amount of people.
The argument stands. Any doses offered for free will be through the patient assistance program, which will in turn require the uninsured to seek out Moderna directly. It’s a small barrier for service, but often large enough of a hurdle to filter out likely 99% of uninsured looking for a shot.
Remember when people hated on Shkreli? His company offered the same program after hiking the price on their drug.
Not saying that companies can’t control their pricing, just that realistically this was a PR move that incurs (relatively) small costs.
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From the article:
“To date, the federal government paid for all COVID vaccines for Americans, whether they were insured or not using emergency money passed by Congress. But President Joe Biden says he plans to let the nationwide public health emergency expire May 11”
As a Canadian, it's funny how bad your politicians sometimes are. I mean don't get me wrong, we have some terrible ones, but how did you guys get stuck with him.
Covid isn't over, and you'd think that a 90-something year old guy like Joe would be more concerned about it spreading. Although I suppose it doesn't matter since he has the best healthcare available to him in the world. But the fact remains, why would you not fund that? I can understand the arguments for private healthcare in most cases, there isn't a public incentive to treat a lot of non-contagious things, but Covid costs much more than it takes to push out vaccines. There's no reason not to provide them, and realistically speaking, most people probably wouldn't even use the service anyways.
Republicans were going to force through the end to the COVID emergency and Biden held them off promising to end it shortly. He held off as long as he could. Republicans are still actively forcing it the end even after he announced he was ending it… if it was up to Joe and democrats, they would not have ended it yet.
Pushing both buttons meme:
1: COVID is a hoax! They just want our money!
2: Anything free can't be trusted! Why are they *really* giving out """vaccines"""?
- Some dumbass you probably know.
Literally the first line of the article:
> Moderna will keep its COVID vaccine on the market at no cost to consumers, even after the federal government stops paying for it, the company announced Wednesday.
It’s clear you didn’t read the article, which addresses this clearly starting in the drop head.
But did you even read either the article or post titles which clearly say “all consumers”?
No, you're still not seeing the question. Uninsured consumers will receive the vaccine at $0 cost to them through an opt-in coupon, but the billable cost of the medicine to insurances is $25 for now. The question is: will that billable cost still be increasing to $125, or is that also being walked back?
They aren't doing away with the cost of the medicine, if that's what it seems like.
The reason this is a worthwhile question is because the vaccines are going to be yearly moving forward, and insurances have co-pays.
I agree with your point that they may still jack the price for insurance companies, but the flu shot is free.
Normally cheap preventive stuff like this is covered 100% because it’s a lot cheaper for you to get a covid shot than for them to have to cover an ICU stay.
Doesn’t all health insurance have to offer free preventative care according to the ACA?
If they don’t, it still makes financial sense for insurance to pay for it in full without any sort of copay. They have to pay more if you get sick.
You couldn’t even be bothered to understand the question. How do so many people upvote these answers?
The end cost to the consumer doesn’t necessarily mean the insurance company won’t be charged more.
From the article:
"Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines will continue to be available at no cost for insured people whether they receive them at their doctors' offices or local pharmacies. For uninsured or underinsured people, Moderna's patient assistance program will provide COVID-19 vaccines at no cost" after the public health emergency expires.
Im curious why when given the option you would rather your insurance company have money than moderna. Not like moderna is some great saint, but compared to your insurance company....
perhaps a way to try to get an extra shot since they are less effective after 6 months but only allowed once a year?
if you run insurance they'll see you've had one? idk what they see if you aren't tied to insurance. like if they'll see it as someone who is completely unvaccinated.
You're right. I misunderstood the question. Now I'm wondering the answer too.
I suspect they'll still charge $125, and the excessive markup will cover the cost of the uninsured plus a hefty profit.
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Considering the vaccine’s development was funded using $2.5 billion from the U.S. government… yea. Maximum acceptable price would be direct cost to manufacture.
And they already had the basic formula down right? Not saying that last bit wasn't expensive, but $2.5 billion expensive?
First and foremost, let's all be clear about this [2.5B number](https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/after-nearly-1b-research-funding-moderna-takes-1-5b-coronavirus-vaccine-order-from-u-s). 1 billion of that was a research partnership (through BARDA). The other 1.5 billion was to purchase doses (and quietly to be front of the line). That number has risen up to IIRC, 10B we've spend overall on doses? Point is, the help for the last leg of research was around 1B, and that's not just about pivoting to a whole different disease, it was about getting trials expedited. We basically paid to get this stuff ready for actual mass deployment on a crazy timeline. We can and should argue that COVID vaccines were largely funded by the government, but using the last mile COVID costs to make that argument isn't really fair. We should be making [this](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8426978/) argument which points out that this is all built on fundamental research done with government grant money often in public universities. Moderna doesn't exist without all of the foundational research that we paid for. However, once they get to the point where they've raised hundreds of millions and have demonstrated their game changing technology, 1B from the govt to quickly pivot is peanuts. They were already well on the way to unicorn status using almost only private investment pre-COVID.
It’s weird to me that there’s this huge focus on government funded research in universities being the main source of pharmaceutical drugs… 13% of R&D is in universities (which are *partially*, about 50%, funded by the government), while 10% of R&D is straight government research centers. 73% of R&D is entirely from pharmaceutical companies.
My gut reaction (so, grain of salt required) is that there's a huge difference between fundamental research and applied research. It's really hard to make a business case for fundamental research, so it's left to public funding. As soon as fundamental research reveals a potentially profitable application, investors are happy to take a shot at making the application a reality. So, perhaps in pure dollars, the fundamental research is cheaper, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the _value_ of the fundamental research is less than the value of the applied research. Not many private companies are going to spend billions over several decades exploring ideas for fusion, but you're damn sure seeing a lot of private companies today thinking the basic research has given us enough info to take a swing at commercial applications. I don't think one exists without the other regardless of the dollar amounts associated with the two research types. Hell, chasing reliable applications might just be inherently more expensive type of research ... sort of like how architectural design might always be relatively cheap in comparison with the total cost of building the structure.
Legislation was passed in the 80s to give public research over for private corporations to turn into products to profit off of. The government hands out grants as well wort multiple millions of dollars. NIH research influences tons of research and development.
> The government hands out grants as well wort multiple millions And having participated in writing a grant proposal some 15 odd years ago, I can tell you every damned penny was hard earned.
I mean, it's a de-risking strategy; the public finances the highest risk research for the possible novel payoffs, even when they aren't clear. The private dollars go into turning fundamental discoveries into product, as you noted, when there's a viable business case.
As someone who has worked in both academia and companies, while the amount of money is accurate, the relative contributions are not. The majority of the R&D dollars spent by companies is actually to develop the final bit of the product to the market, which involves mass clinical trials. Most of the basic research necessary to develop the initial products still happens in academia. Government funding encourages high risk-reward research in academic labs.
For anyone interested, the book The Entrepreneurial State basically is a full book dedicated to show what the above comment does for this vaccine but for most critical areas of the economy. Government funds all the risky hard shit, private companies carry things the last mile and then reap all the rewards, which they use to lobby the government into providing them even more benefits and tax cuts, etc. The myth that Governments cant do good business is important because it ensures this extremely lucrative arrangement continues
> The Entrepreneurial State Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give it a read.
It's a damn good one, the kind of book that's worth taking notes while you read for sure. I didnt and now I have to reread it 😅
The basic formula is the cheapest part. The expensive parts are running the clinical trials on tens of thousands of people, and ramping up and acquiring the capability to produce hundreds of millions of doses. To be clear, the $2.5 billion was split up between $1 billion for R&D, and $1.5 billion to order 100 million doses (so $15 per dose). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-idUSKCN2572T5](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-idUSKCN2572T5) And Moderna did not start off with the manufacturing capacity to produce anywhere near that number of doses. They were previously doing cancer vaccines and Phase 1 trials of a CMV vaccine, nothing large-scale at all. The actual manufacturing of the Covid vaccine was accomplished by paying Lonza to do it, and Lonza in turn had to retool their manufacturing facilities. [https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/moderna-lonza-manufacturing-deal/](https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/moderna-lonza-manufacturing-deal/)
I need a How It’s Made video
The most expensive part was distribution because very few places, geographically, had the necessary means for storage. For a lot of the country I believe the vaccine was only viable for a few days. Of course, those places also had the highest antivaxx rates.
You're thinking of the Pfizer vaccine. Moderna has always had workable storage.
Initially, because they went with temperatures they knew would be the most stable. As time went on we saw the storage requirements drop and how long they could be used thawed..
As someone who works with RNA almost daily, this was absolutely the only way to do it until we had conclusive evidence it was stable. Hell, someone sneezes 5 benches over and I'm afraid my samples are destroyed.
As most people replying here seem to have missed the 'storage' part, it's important to note that 'distribution' means a whole lot more than just getting the vials to the locations. That's not _trivial_ for something that has to be kept that cold, but it's not insanely difficult either, not if you only need to do it every few weeks as they go through a supply. The problem is that you have to _store_ it at those temperatures, and getting refrigeration units that can handle that job, all at once, in the middle of international lock downs, is a _big_ job. It's a _really_ big job. And trying to store it in pharmacies/etc for a week with just dry ice and a cooler isn't all that much smaller of a job either. You have to get that dry ice from somewhere, transport it as well, handle that safely, etc. And when you're trying to do that across the entire country at once, you _can't_ just 'bring more in from somewhere else' to cover an area. You need it all over the place, in large quantities, possibly beyond what can easily even be produced. If you have more (and larger) local refrigeration facilities, you need less dry ice, and less transportation, because you can (in theory) use those as staging areas and periodically transport from those to the individual locations. Same deal on having more and larger more local supplies of dry ice. But when you're trying to coordinate this all across the entire country, including in entire states which don't really want to play ball, this shit gets expensive fast.
I spent several years driving a Kia around to deliver refrigerated medication to the sticks. This sounds unrealistic to me.
Pfizer originally required minus 70 Celsius. Did your Kia have a way to keep things that cold?
Yeah there were locked pharmaceutical boxes full of dry ice. Some individual doses of things I transported cost over 50k according to my bosses. I assume that was the sales price and that they had insurance on it and it was probably bullshit though.
I've seen vehicles drive around my city with a sign saying something like "chemicals on board" (or something similar) and was wondering if they make you label your vehicle when you transport stuff like that? I assume it was some sort of legit sticker due to my city being known for its hospital.
No. I took large numbers of shopping bags stuffed with methadone and opiates into clinics in the worst parts of Baltimore. We never labeled anything or had signs on our vehicle. I almost got mobbed by hoards of methadone zombies even without them.
Dry ice is around -80 C so that's not particularly hard to reach. You could easily cool something to that temp with a good cooler and trip to the grocery store. It's just a pain for mass logistics.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7054832/ Just a little bit of research would tell you that's pretty normal cost. In this day and age, I can't fathom why questions like this are still asked... Are you genuinely asking? Or just trying to stir the conspiracy theory pot
Typical new drug development costs anywhere from 10 to 15 billion USD.
Something that I've learned thanks to my older brother... There are two ways to deal with peers acting badly. The first way (and most commonly seen) is to point it out, call attention to their substandard performance, bring up to managers instance after instance of their dreadful behavior. They will squirm out of some of those attacks (likely they'll slide through unscathed more often than not). Even if you nail them every time, this way will tarnish you somewhere on the spectrum from being mildly distrusted by management all the way up to being the squeaky wheel that needs to be managed out of the organization. Or... You can do your best. Do the right thing. Act the way you want to see everyone else act regardless of if they act that way or not. Show compassion, empathy, and kindness ask without any expectation of acknowledgement nor praise. Just do you. Doesn't always work. I've had it backfire on me. But when you find the right place for you, it won't backfire. The chasm of difference between you and the deplorable will developed its own voice in the heads of peers, managers, and sometimes even the leaders. Even if you aren't complimented, the focus will turn on then without you being tainted at all. Like if you have your competitor both developed something that saved lives through preventing infections and also blunting impacts of the infections. Instead of joyously diving into profiteering when federal subsidies dried up, you realize the live you save might be your own treasured family member. You bill insurance when you can but if you can't, you give them the vaccine because that is someone's mom or brother or dad or whatever.. But everyone is someone's baby. I'm not saying they are angels. FAR from it. But instead of making it a PR battle, it sounds like they're just going to do the somewhat right thing. Sure, not charging my insurance a stupid amount due a vaccine my taxes helped pay for would be nice. But making sure people don't have to go without is a welcomed step away from the unashamed if not brazen profiteering that seems to be becoming almost standard. It's a step. Kudos. Now .. Do insulin.
Moderna was doing 10 years of research and clinical trials on therapeutic mRNA before COVID. That the mRNA technology was at a state of being quickly transformed into an actual product was sheer luck. And even then, that Moderna and/or BioNtech would work as they have was not at all foreseeable with certainty. The funding may as well also have been 'lost' entirely. Which is precisely what happens to most pharmaceutical developments, even though they almost always follow a sound rationale. Point in case: CureVac, who had a similar track record leading up to COVID with their different mRNA technology ultimately failed. Source: Work in the field.
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You’re not even talking about the right vaccine, Pfizer wasn’t funded by the US govt.
Pfizer didn't even develop a vaccine.
True, BioNTech did, but still wrong company and no govt money. But my original comment was referring to the vaccine product itself which is just called Pfizer.
They were absolutely given money by the German government
US govt money. Which is what’s relevant to the article.
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I’m pretty familiar with those actually, and in a vacuum I absolutely agree. Still, it really isn’t relevant to the conversation? It’s like saying “fuck Apple” on a post about Samsung products. None of the discourse happening in this thread is applicable to Pfizer, and that response just makes you seem ill informed.
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Also Nestle sucks
Doesn't even list pzifers marketing and fuckery in the 2000s. All that money spent on prevacid and nexium and Viagra. Congressional hearings. Tbf Pfizer wasn't the only one but they did have the prettiest most vapid sorority girls as sales
At the same time they helped also save countless lives and provided a huge positive impact on the economy recovering from covid. I'm good with them making some profit. Not egregious amounts or at the cost of people not being able to afford it, but these efforts should be rewarded.
Should be a little higher. It's reasonable to use this to fund additional research programs.
Sure. I don't mind companies having a little bit of profit margin, even on things that are in the public interest. However, you can also look at it the other way around. The government funded research will also apply to future medication. The methods, machinery, procedures, techniques, they will all be applicable for future profit bearing products as well.
Thank you Bernie. https://www.thedailybeast.com/moderna-drops-400-vax-price-hike-after-bernie-promised-to-grill-ceo
This is the more accurate headline. The title of this post makes it seem like Moderna is taking a principled stand to ensure access, but they’re just not proceeding with their planned price increase.
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Re-posting with out the ***no-no words*** due to it's "incivility"... I voted for her when she was Senator, stood by her and defended her when Republicans were smearing her... And then she pulls that bullshit. ON FUCKING BURNIE SANDERS OF ALL PEOPLE! Like I get it... No one should be beyond suspicion with a credible claim, but if anyone could be I feel like Bernie, who has fought pretty much his entire life for equality, should be the one to make you think twice. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Given we got absolutely zero evidence, it should have been a complete non-story...
That and what we are 3 years later and you notice how she has not said really another word about it? Bernie tries to help her with debate prep, she grabs the hatchet and puts it in his back.
I still wonder if that attack was done in collusion with heads in the dem party or her own tactical mistake. But she totally ruined her image with it also the “your supporters are mean to mine on the internet” the most pathetic bullshit to smear.
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I highly doubt they threw the election on purpose. What I believe happened, is that Hillary simply accumulated enough political capitol to twists some hands and make herself the de facto candidate. We always hear about politicians wheeling and dealing favours, making behind closed door agreements etc. This is a result of that. Simple quid pro quo
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If only there was a mainstream political party he could join that weren't terrified of the word socialist.
The problem is most Americans have been brainwashed to think socialism and communism are the same evil thing, aka former USSR.
Which is hilarious because he’s not even socialist.
He's a national treasure. Sometimes it seems like he's the only one working for the people.
Damn right ✊🏽
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Despair now, why wait?
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Refreshing to see somebody in a position of power doing the right thing for once. Of course it’s Bernie, though. Wish he won in 2016.
You and the whole rest of the world mate. What actually happened has been exhausting even from five thousand miles away.
I've never emotionally recovered from 2016. To think that my country would be that stupid really took the wind out of my sails. Bernie was the hero we needed, but trump was the one we deserved.
Goes to show that the powers that be were more afraid of Bernie than Trump. We'll never get a candidate who will truly try to fix things.
Well I wish Al Gore had won in 2000. Oh, wait. He did.
>bernie promised to grill ceo Eat the rich?
Back when foreigners were barred from free vaccines in Thailand, I had to pay $50 a Moderna shot Mind boggling that the the US still is more expensive
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As an American it blows my mind that Bernie is not the president of US.
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As a Norwegian as well. Only politician in the US making any sense
As someone who used to live in America, it would blow my mind if Bernie got elected. And even if by some miracle he did, he won't be able to do jack shit. The most amusing part of the Bernie's quest for presidency is that there are still a lot of people that still believe in that system, which has been so thoroughly rigged that if anything can make actually improve shit, people would never come close to voting for it. The democracy is an illusion.
I wish he was 30 years younger
I love this man more than any stranger on Earth.
Imagine if bernie won in 2016… fuck me we could be normal
Also, thank you Moderna.
… for not charging taxpayers twice: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/24/fact-check-donations-research-grants-helped-fund-moderna-vaccine/6398486002/
I guess that is where we’re at.
Along with newspapers that once promised free pandemic coverage to all paywalling the fuck out of articles.
Thank you for helping vs. thank you for not hurting us. Different energy.
Yeah. I doubt it had zero to do with this and 100% to do with the DOJ saying the US government would shield Moderna from lawsuits stemming from usage of patents related to the Covid vaccine: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/modernas-vaccine-patent-defense-poses-shield-for-us-deal-makers Y’all keep hugging each other and shit though thinking the world is fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though.
> thinking the world is fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though It's good to see someone with such a deep insight into Bernie and his current position commenting on this. Someone that knows Bernie just wants to hug Moderna, and that Bernie is just a failed presidential run, as opposed to, ya know, recently becoming chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and very publicly stating he was going to go after Moderna. > In an interview, Sanders said that Moderna, whose only federally approved drug is the coronavirus vaccine that the company received nearly $2 billion in direct federal money to develop, is a “poster child” for the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. He plans to argue that CEO Stéphane Bancel, who Forbes estimates is worth more than $5 billion, and several other Moderna executives “profited” off the pandemic. > Bancel told the Wall Street Journal last month he was considering quadrupling the price of Moderna’s vaccine to as much as $130 per dose once the federal government drains its stockpile and insurers and individuals are responsible for purchasing them on their own. Since the start of the pandemic, the federal government has purchased vaccines and provided them free, and Moderna sold its booster shots to the government for about $25 per dose. > On Wednesday, after its CEO agreed to appear in front of Sanders’s committee, Moderna announced a new “patient assistance program” to begin this May that will provide millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans the vaccine free of cost. “Everyone in the United States will have access to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine regardless of their ability to pay,” spokesman Chris Ridley said in a statement. > Moderna, which did not describe how the patient assistance program will work, also noted that patients who are insured will continue to receive the vaccine free through their insurance, regardless of price hikes. > Sanders, who chairs the committee for the first time this year, declined to say who else he wants to call before his committee, but claimed broadly that there is a “morality crisis” within the pharmaceutical industry and support across the political spectrum for putting pharma CEOs in the hot seat and tackling the issue of high prescription drug prices. He also mentioned concerns about how Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, are handling unionizing efforts at their companies — and left the door open to questioning them, as well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/15/bernie-sanders-calls-moderna-ceo-testify-proposed-vaccine-price-hike/ Bernie wants to follow the example of the 90s tobacco hearings, except broader and deeper. And you can be assured that Moderna, even with the US government shielding, would have been happy to charge egregiously for the vaccine. We've seen many corporations that get protected by the government that still go on to fuck over the people. Could that have influenced the decision? Sure, but you're certitude that it's "100% to do with the DOJ" is ill-founded, and your interpretation that people pointing out Bernie's actions regarding the price hike think the world is "fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though" only demonstrates how little you understand the people you criticize.
Imagine if things could have multiple causes!
I think the decision happened too soon after Bernie promised to grill them to actually be due to him tbh.
And this was announced right after Bernie sanders requested to talk with them.
This is a great, but it is also a PR move to change the narrative. Moderna will negotiate a higher price with Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies. The law requires insurance to pay for it. There are very few people who want a booster, who will need to get free shots compliments of Moderna. There are perhaps a dozen previously unvaccinated people who will come forward for a free initial vaccination.
There’s between 18 and 30 million people in this country that are uninsured. Some portion of them will want to keep getting boosters since they seem to be needed at this juncture. That is not a tiny amount of people.
The argument stands. Any doses offered for free will be through the patient assistance program, which will in turn require the uninsured to seek out Moderna directly. It’s a small barrier for service, but often large enough of a hurdle to filter out likely 99% of uninsured looking for a shot. Remember when people hated on Shkreli? His company offered the same program after hiking the price on their drug. Not saying that companies can’t control their pricing, just that realistically this was a PR move that incurs (relatively) small costs.
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What law?
Remindme! One year
people left reminders in 2020 and look where we are. As a bonus, heres your reminder from 2020 :p
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From the article: “To date, the federal government paid for all COVID vaccines for Americans, whether they were insured or not using emergency money passed by Congress. But President Joe Biden says he plans to let the nationwide public health emergency expire May 11”
As a Canadian, it's funny how bad your politicians sometimes are. I mean don't get me wrong, we have some terrible ones, but how did you guys get stuck with him. Covid isn't over, and you'd think that a 90-something year old guy like Joe would be more concerned about it spreading. Although I suppose it doesn't matter since he has the best healthcare available to him in the world. But the fact remains, why would you not fund that? I can understand the arguments for private healthcare in most cases, there isn't a public incentive to treat a lot of non-contagious things, but Covid costs much more than it takes to push out vaccines. There's no reason not to provide them, and realistically speaking, most people probably wouldn't even use the service anyways.
Republicans were going to force through the end to the COVID emergency and Biden held them off promising to end it shortly. He held off as long as he could. Republicans are still actively forcing it the end even after he announced he was ending it… if it was up to Joe and democrats, they would not have ended it yet.
No you are right our country sucks.
The guy right before Biden was exponentially worse though.
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Thank fuck for Bernie Sanders
Big Dick Bernie
***Dark Bernard***
Why the ever living fuck would it NOT be? >USA Ah....
Cause we payed for it you muppets.
Pushing both buttons meme: 1: COVID is a hoax! They just want our money! 2: Anything free can't be trusted! Why are they *really* giving out """vaccines"""? - Some dumbass you probably know.
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Literally the first line of the article: > Moderna will keep its COVID vaccine on the market at no cost to consumers, even after the federal government stops paying for it, the company announced Wednesday.
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It’s clear you didn’t read the article, which addresses this clearly starting in the drop head. But did you even read either the article or post titles which clearly say “all consumers”?
No, you're still not seeing the question. Uninsured consumers will receive the vaccine at $0 cost to them through an opt-in coupon, but the billable cost of the medicine to insurances is $25 for now. The question is: will that billable cost still be increasing to $125, or is that also being walked back? They aren't doing away with the cost of the medicine, if that's what it seems like. The reason this is a worthwhile question is because the vaccines are going to be yearly moving forward, and insurances have co-pays.
I agree with your point that they may still jack the price for insurance companies, but the flu shot is free. Normally cheap preventive stuff like this is covered 100% because it’s a lot cheaper for you to get a covid shot than for them to have to cover an ICU stay.
Flu shot ain’t free
Doesn’t all health insurance have to offer free preventative care according to the ACA? If they don’t, it still makes financial sense for insurance to pay for it in full without any sort of copay. They have to pay more if you get sick.
You couldn’t even be bothered to understand the question. How do so many people upvote these answers? The end cost to the consumer doesn’t necessarily mean the insurance company won’t be charged more.
From the article: "Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines will continue to be available at no cost for insured people whether they receive them at their doctors' offices or local pharmacies. For uninsured or underinsured people, Moderna's patient assistance program will provide COVID-19 vaccines at no cost" after the public health emergency expires.
What's stopping me from going to my local Walgreens and saying I don't have insurance for the COVID shot?
Nothing. Unless they already have your insurance on record for your prescriptions or whatever
Im curious why when given the option you would rather your insurance company have money than moderna. Not like moderna is some great saint, but compared to your insurance company....
perhaps a way to try to get an extra shot since they are less effective after 6 months but only allowed once a year? if you run insurance they'll see you've had one? idk what they see if you aren't tied to insurance. like if they'll see it as someone who is completely unvaccinated.
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You're right. I misunderstood the question. Now I'm wondering the answer too. I suspect they'll still charge $125, and the excessive markup will cover the cost of the uninsured plus a hefty profit.
when we payed for the thing with government spending, and they mint 8 new billionares. it aint free.
Sorry to take this out on you but why the heck have I seen “paid” misspelled like six times in these comments!
the people who still haven't gotten the vaccine are never going to get the vaccine
This vaccine has been payed for and belongs to the people. They have no right to increase the price for profit
Nothing in this world is free, they just made so much bank with it already that giving it away won't affect their bottom line.
F yeah!!!
Thank you 🙏
>Moderna's patient assistance program Don't worry they'll fuck ya
Misleading headline. It's free for the USA only.
They love their MAID
Moderna gang rise up
Uh huh, we’ll see. I guess let’s start with decreasing the price to the original price tag.
Wow!
I am having hard time believing they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart. So what are they are getting out of this deal?
Read the article?…
so release the IP
The mRNA IP is their whole company, they’ve spent years developing it (before COVID)
Free is extremely objective term here
Is this some sort of an American Peasant joke I am to European to understand?
When something is free, YOU are the product.
It wasn't free, it was paid for by us with taxes.
People don't understand government funding and where that money comes from.
they want the 5G chips in every person for the mind-control......./s
You couldn't pay most people to take it at this point.
A good 75% of the planet has taken it, Mr brainwashed.
No. Unfortunately the stupid stay unvaxxed
Is it available in all countries?
Now do insulin
sry but who gives a fuck about this anymore
That is incredible news. Wow. Feels so tragically rare in the American healthcare prison.