Could Open Source Licensing Stop Big Pharma Profiteering On Taxpayer-Funded Covid-19 Vaccines? (theconversation.com) 81
Two professors at the University of Massachusetts have co-authored a new essay explaining how open source licensing "could keep Big Pharma from making huge profits off taxpayer-funded research" in the international, multi-billion-dollar race for a Covid-19 vaccine:
The invention of the "General Public License," sometimes referred to as a viral or reciprocal license, meant that should an improvement be made, the new software version automatically inherits the same license as its parent. We believe that in a time of a global pandemic, a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine should be licensed with General Public License-like properties...
Fortunately, some pharmaceutical companies, national governments, nonprofits like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and international organizations like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiatives — which supports vaccine development — are putting policies in place that embrace openness and sharing rather than intellectual property protection. Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiatives officials have stated that all of their funding agreements require that "appropriate vaccines are first available to populations when and where they are needed to end an outbreak or curtail an epidemic, regardless of ability to pay." That's an important start.
However, when there is a safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. and other national governments need to create contractual agreements with firms that provide fair and reasonable funding to cover their costs or even some reasonable profit margin while still mandating the open sharing of the processes for vaccine production, quality assurance and rapid global distribution.
Fortunately, some pharmaceutical companies, national governments, nonprofits like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and international organizations like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiatives — which supports vaccine development — are putting policies in place that embrace openness and sharing rather than intellectual property protection. Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiatives officials have stated that all of their funding agreements require that "appropriate vaccines are first available to populations when and where they are needed to end an outbreak or curtail an epidemic, regardless of ability to pay." That's an important start.
However, when there is a safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. and other national governments need to create contractual agreements with firms that provide fair and reasonable funding to cover their costs or even some reasonable profit margin while still mandating the open sharing of the processes for vaccine production, quality assurance and rapid global distribution.
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Indeed. I have no problem with pharm companies recovering development cost. But what usually happens is that the a) get filthy rich and b) they do only research things that make them even richer. No civil responsibility at all as the lack of new antibiotics (for example) shows. The entirely intentional opioid crisis in the US also nicely shows that many of them are basically criminal enterprises.
Re: Why limit it to Wuhan-virus? (Score:2)
It depends on how you value human life.
If believe humans have zero innate value, and if you believe it is good for humans who are lucky to have more value than humans who sacrifice, then those things you describe are fairly equivalent.
But society tends to disagree with these positions.
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No, this is irrelevant.
Why is this applicable to pharmaceuticals, and not, say, to food-growers or TV-makers?
Of course, it is not — which is why, it is bullshit.
Re: Why limit it to Wuhan-virus? (Score:2)
Socialism can of course cover all areas, if society deems it good.
But people care more about fighting disease and death than some of the other things you listed, so they emphasize socialism in those areas more often. It isnâ(TM)t a binary answer; we can care about both, and we can care about them differently.
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Socialism can make everyone equally poor.
But why is fighting disease — which only affects some — more important than producing food, which is needed by everyone? Shoudn't we nationalize farms first by this logic — before we nationalize pharmaceuticals?
After food comes clothing and shelter, so apparel-makers and home-construction co
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The opioid "crisis" is government and defense/police contractor created. It was not conjured by the pharmaceutical companies. They're trying to convince congress to protect $225+ billion dollars in anti-marijuana enforcement money that's about to go tits-up due to US State marijuana legalization laws by transferring it to the opioid "crisis." We have had the same number of opioid overdose deaths for the last few decades, but there was a large reported jump in "overdoses" because the DEA decided to change
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Facts would disagree, this problem was created by the pharma industry: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Now, of course there are valid use-cases for opioids and people that are best treated with them. These people should most definitely get them, but with the whole information package and a clear statement of the risk. Due to the risk of addiction, any such use needs to be carefully monitored and managed. However, even if a patient gets addicted, as long as they need the stuff get it to them and most certa
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MDs not qualified to handle the risks prescribed them.
That line covers every general practitioner with 90%+ of all medications. Opioids are not unique here. Either GPs can't prescribe medications, forcing every prescription to be referred to a specialist, with a huge increase in medical costs and time until care or we deal.
The problem is, the definition change was a case of before, any death that involved opioids and another cause (alcohol, medical condition, mixing drugs, etc. [aka stupidity, mostly]) used to be listed as something else with opioids being a
it's already like open source (Score:2)
NIH funds the basic research to discover new compounds. These are like AOSP that google releases, it's a start to making a phone but you need a lot more stuff. Start ups take the research and make a drug around it in the form of a pill or whatever that the body will digest and the drug will release. the NIH research isn't a full fledged drug. the start ups don't have the time or money to test and get it approved by the FDA so they sell their drugs to the big drug companies who spend years and lots of money
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Unlike Open Source though, even with the various compounding parts (the actual pill or injection/mist fluid for delivery, etc) being published/Open it still takes a TON of equipment/cash/know-how to spin up and produce something that can actually be used/administered.
Situations like this I would think something like Eminent Domain could handle - government forces sale of license to manufacture and sell at a reasonable fixed cost for a fixed period of time.
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Situations like this I would think something like Eminent Domain could handle - government forces sale of license to manufacture and sell at a reasonable fixed cost for a fixed period of time.
Yep, that's what I'm anticipating would happen if things get sticky. The govt will essentially buy all rights, by force of law, and then will subsidize the vaccine until the pandemic is brought under control.
More than likely, though, is that the pharmas know that would happen, and the horribly publicity and govt backlash wouldn't be worth risking it. There are just too many eyes on this one. So it probably won't cost much at all.
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Then talking about the TB inoculation for few days and then silence, why, because pharmaceutical corporations paid to kill the story, can not have a century old solution with no patents solve the problem, not after they went to the trouble to murder all those POOR old people, where's the return on those bribes.
As a sixty-something from the UK I've had to have a couple of chest X-rays for my US visa and green card thanks to the good old BCG inoculation showing up on my TB test. But if BCG was effective against Covid-19 then wouldn't that mean a low death rate in the UK? That certainly does not seem to be the case.
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Wow! You are a walking and talking conspiracy "theorist". You should work for Fox...errr...maybe you do?
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I agree - if this pandemic is so bad that we have to have civil liberties "temporarily" restricted, then the governments should also be using the same emergency powers to force the pharma companies to research and provide these vaccines at cost, or in the national interest for free.
Then I think we'd see the pandemic will suddenly turn out not to be quite so bad after all, almost overnight.
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NIH funds the basic research to discover new compounds. These are like AOSP that google releases, it's a start to making a phone but you need a lot more stuff. Start ups take the research and make a drug around it in the form of a pill or whatever that the body will digest and the drug will release. the NIH research isn't a full fledged drug
The NIH funded research generally doesn't go to discovering the new compounds, it goes to figuring out which molecules and activities in the body need to be modulated. The new compounds that go on to become drugs are mostly (75-85%) discovered by biotechs and pharmas.
i will give you the short answer (Score:2)
the U.S. and other national governments need to.. (Score:2)
the U.S. and other national governments need to create contractual agreements with firms that provide fair and reasonable funding to cover their costs or even some reasonable profit margin while still mandating the open sharing of the processes for vaccine production, quality assurance and rapid global distribution.
Sounds great until the discussion over what is "fair and reasonable" takes place. The argument that ensues proves the point that the market should decide, that "price fixing" isnt any more of a solution to this debate than "intellectual property" laws are.
The purpose of patents is to encourage the public disclosure of what would be trade secrets. It is not to ensure profits. The profit motive that is built in is that you get to exclusively use such and such for a bit by law, which is in counter-balance t
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It is absolutely the purpose of patents to ensure exclusive _profitable_ enjoyment of the invention for some period of time, in order to encourage further invention. Many - perhaps most - trade secrets can be reverse-engineered. The decision to patent vs trade secret is a complicated one. Maybe the patent looks expensive to litigate. Maybe you believe your secret sauce is suffic
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Being pedantic here, but the purpose is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. In paraphrase, to encourage the public disclosure of what would be trade secrets, for the public good. The mechan
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It is absolutely the purpose of patents to ensure exclusive _profitable_ enjoyment of the invention for some period of time
Lots of things get patented that are not profitable. You failed. You failed massively. You displayed both your lack of knowledge as well as your FUCKING DISGUSTING DISHONESTY in your knee-jerk rapid reply of ignorance of making shit up.
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Looking at what is going on now, to find treatments for Covid-19, like vaccines or steroids, or whatever, it is fairly clear that none of this research comes cheap. The thing is, many of these potential treatments might be ineffective or harmful, so they never get used. But you have to try the different ideas out, or you will never find the good treatments. Who pays for this research?
In a pure libertarian business model, big pharma companies are taking big risks. They back a load of ideas, at their expense,
Defense Production Act (Score:2)
If the pricing gets out of hand, we need to not be afraid to invoke the defense production act. Rather than permanently curb patent rights or limit all innovation. An emergency is an emergent and comes with certain responsibilities.
Vaccines are getting more expensive in general (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the C19 vaccine candidates that I've read any details about are using exotic manufacturing techniques and are going to fall into this same category. It's all very well saying 'the formula for the vaccine is open source' but if the only people who are willing to actually manufacture it will only do so using patent-protected processes for which they charge a handsome premium... so what?
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Vaccines are quite easy and very cheap to make, it's the regulations, insurance, and other BS surrounding it that make it insanely expensive. It costs $2 billion to get a sugar pill through the FDA process (3 clinical trials etc.) Citation (2014, costs have only gone up): https://www.policymed.com/2014... [policymed.com] I mean, just the Phase III clinical trial aspect costs $50,000 per patient (recruitment, treatment, insurance BS) and you need about 2 to 3 thousand of them. Citation (2013): https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/ [quoracdn.net]
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If the COVID-19 vaccine costs $2bn the government should just buy the rights to it. Even if it cost $200bn they should do that. Buy it, make it freely available to anyone with the capacity to make it, and enjoy the economic boost that will doubtless be 20x that at least.
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Umm, why would we create barriers for companies that want to make those things? Especially cures for disease. We need rockets and space exploration, the more bullshit regulations we make the harder it is for space companies to exist .. which means less space exploration. Same things with cures. These dumb regulations by politicians are stupidly adding costs without any societal benefit.
Re: Vaccines are getting more expensive in general (Score:2)
These dumb regulations by politicians are stupidly adding costs without any societal benefit.
You think safety and efficacy trials are stupid and have no societal benefit? Might as well stop crash testing vehicles too cause no one really cares which passengers can survive a collision...
OK, I'll admit, I'm a "leftie" (Score:5, Insightful)
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What about this: You can get the vaccine or you can get the vaccine and buy insurance at a nice additional fee. Without that fee, you only get the standard due diligence and if they violate that, they still become liable, civilly and criminally.
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For non-US markets, while I don't have detailed knowledge, I'd guess it's probably simpler because the costs of treating the adverse event are already covered under a socialized medicine system. (This fact has all sorts of interesting side effects).
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The rate of increase of GBS (Guilain Barre Syndrome) for the H1N1 vaccine was ~ 0.27 per 100,000. Most of these were males in the over 60s age group and they developed symptoms within the first 4 weeks 80% recovered quickly. So a typical large city of 5 million people if it had a 66% vaccination rate would see ~9 additional cases of GBS with 1.8 people on average requiring serious ongoing treatment for 6-12 months.
Taking that across the entire US population of 328 million people would mean you would see 1
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I had that you cant edit.
118 serious cases.
Imagine a world with no religion.. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Naa, that would be an idea that respects human life. We cannot have that. Some people must be scum and life and die miserably, or how else would the west be able to feel superior?
In other news, I firmly believe the human race will eventually get there, along with nobody going hungry, nobody going without education and no psychos in positions of power. The last will probably have to be the first problem that needs solves. But while I think we will get there, it will require a number of global catastrophes fi
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Doctors are not your slaves.
Medical researchers are not your slaves.
Drug factory workers are not your slaves.
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Are Boeing and Lockheed Martin our slaves? Are the Armed Forces our slaves? You seem to confuse providing a product to people, air quotes "FOR FREE," with actually not paying for something. I didn't "pay" for 20 years of troops in Iraq, but I sure as shit got it.
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Necessity is the mother of invention.right now we need a vaccine.
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Re: Today's Internet is a dystopian nightmare. (Score:2)
great idea (Score:2)
Also, Josiah Zayner and David Ishee have successful neutralizing antibody tests from their self-administered vaccine. Worth taking a look at. They've had to use creative naming to get around google censorship but not hard to spot the research here in Zayner's videos. https://www.youtube.com/c/JosiahZayner/videos
Everything has been done transparently. Note, they have not actually infected themselves to test effectiveness, only success of their plasma in a surrogate neutralization test but this more than just
I will give you a short answer: (Score:2)
This isnt' some 'boutique' 'disease' that people can live with, it threatens the entire planet full of humans. Distribute the process to make the vaccine to everyone with the proviso that they sell it at cost.
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No, only a threat to a small minority of humans. It's a minor thing or nothing for most. Also, this "open source license" is wishful thinking, a waste of time that won't happen.
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Thanks for your opinion, Nostradamus. Now how about leaving the discussion to the adults.
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You are the child, adults know what is realistic and doable. Hand waving and white papers are for college kids. This kind of "open source" won't happen, child.
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It's just the flu, bro!
BULLSHIT.
Play Russian Roulette with the virus
Fine. Go lick coronavirus patients and get sick, be sure to livestream it for us so we can watch you die. Jackass.
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you are spewing off topic, the point is the "open source" info won't happen, can't happen. It's pointless to talk about pipe dreams.
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Go suck a COVID patient's dick til you choke on it, moron. With any luck, you'll die before the rest of us have to foot the bill for your health care.
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You spew like a child too, and only prove the point that adults know the "open source info" of this article won't and can't happen. It's past your bedtime, child.
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You're contradicting yourself. If "it threatens the entire planet full of humans", then you want to pay lots of extra money for the vaccine so that lots of it gets produced and distributed as quickly as possible. If you demand it's sold "at cost", then there's no incentive to spend anything but the bare minimum in production and distribution.
Your idea is called a price ceiling, and economists of every ideological persuasion agree based on empirical reality that price ceilings rapidly lead to severe shortage
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> It threatens the entire planet full of humans.
Really, it does not. As deadly as it is for some, The worst mortality so far has apparently been in Peru, where the death rate is less than 100 in 100,000 people.That is not even one tenth o one percent. The "Spanish flu" of roughly 100 years ago had a mortality of roughly 2.5%. As devastating as so many deaths are, they're not a big threat to the entire planet, and the survivors will likely share some "herd immunity".
Does it threaten every human? Yes. But
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What if we let them focus (Score:1)
What if we let them focus on making a vaccine in the fastest time ever — 4+ times faster than any previously developed and proven vaccine — instead of diverting their attention towards people who want to steal it from them?
Freedom of choice, vitamin D3, (Score:1)
IVC vitamin C, early HCQ and zinc would do more to stop big pharma profiteering on CV-19.
Basically attacks on cheap prophylactics and cheap treatments have killed a lot people and cost US billions, to promote authoritarian politics, tech titan abuses, and pharma profits.
A conventional medical approach to hospital treatment
https://www.evms.edu/media/evm... [evms.edu]
Orthomolecular doctor reviews possibilities
https://orthomole [activehosted.com]
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vitamin C, zinc, and quercetin supplements would be a good start against profiteering.
IVC vitamin C, early HCQ and zinc would do more to stop big pharma profiteering on CV-19.
Basically attacks on cheap prophylactics and cheap treatments have killed a lot people and cost US billions, to promote authoritarian politics, tech titan abuses, and pharma profits.
A conventional medical approach to hospital treatment
https://www.evms.edu/media/evm... [evms.edu]
Orthomolecular doctor reviews possibilities
https://orthomolecular.activeh... [activehosted.com]
People are grasping at straws with this vitamin stuff. It is possible that vitamin deficiency might compromise your immune system, but taking mega-doses of vitamins does not turn you into Super(wo)man. From what I have read, ill health due to vitamin deficiency is pretty rare in the western developed world. Post-menopausal women can benefit from vitamin D supplements, to suppress osteoporosis, but old blokes like me probably to not need extra vitamin D. I was told this by a nurse. I am the wrong color, the
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Recent studies, repeatedly show great improvements in survival with much larger doses of vitamin D.
IV vitamin C makes a huge difference in critical care, per my previous link to EVMS.
HCQ is another case of pharma disinformation campaign.
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It is possible to overdose on vitamin D using pills. I can't remember what the symptoms are. The basic problem is that vitamin D is fat soluble, and excess is not readily eliminated from the body. Vitamin A overdose is well known. Another fat-soluble vitamin. If you try really hard, you can get vitamin A overdose from an extreme diet, without pills. Live on carrot juice and liver, and your skin goes orange.
My point is that vitamins are good for you (obviously), but more vitamins are not necessarily better.
T
Patents, not copyright (Score:2)
Patents are still an obscruction to open source license development. Some free software licenses, such as GPLv3, aggressively protect against "Tivoaization" style abuse of patents. But I can't list any license that blocks patent proprietization. Can anyone?
Fuck off with this (Score:1)
I posted a link to one of the many open source vaccine designs as far back as January and not a dog was interested.
https://github.com/feraliscatu... [github.com]
Why can't they have big profit? (Score:2)
Ok, let's say, for the sake of argument, that we do not want them to have big profit: they just get refunded for their cost, maybe add a 5% profit margin (or is that too much already?), that's it.
And then the next virus comes along.
Those companies that jumped into research, throwing everything they had into it because they thought they could make billions? They are not going to stop all their existing programs, hire new people, invest massively, start a huge research program, just for a tiny 5% margin. A va
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profiteering vs profiting (Score:2)
Here's a question:
"Could Open Source Licensing Stop Big Pharma PROFITING On Taxpayer-Funded Covid-19 Vaccines?"
Because, unfortunately, if you open-source it, China will just start making it and selling it at a price with which no Western company can compete.
Sorry, silver bullets are extremely rare in nature.
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Um, and why is it that China could do that, and western companies can't?
Would it mean, say, lowering profits from last quarter? Perhaps (HORRORS!) not even paying the execs bonuses (the kind they get, even when the company's going into bankruptcy)? Lowering priced from price-gouging? (quinine, for malaria, costs $3.00 to make, but it $80+ in the US per dose). Or the price of epi-pens?
How to cure everything (Score:1)
1. Create world health organization. Give it a name, e.g. WHO
2. Remove all drug patents
3. Make WHO collect and distribute money and decide and distribute work to member countries to research health issues and find cures to them.
4. When something is discovered, share all data to everyone. For this, create WHO owned scientific library to collect and share all information for free
Benefits:
- Focus on most important issues, instead of inventing minor improvements to drugs that give best money
- Avoid repeating sa
hopefully we take this opportunity (Score:2)
I'm a physicist specializing in electronics and happen to work in bio. I also do a lot of patenting and patent strategy development for my company. The culture around IP in bio is terrible and has contributed to inflated costs and disappointing performance.
In electronics, every device carries with it a huge number of different patents. These patents are often licensed in pre-set groups by manufacturers, enabling a designer to go to many different contract manufacturers and get the same process run. If you'r