Gregory's Server@rbreich I totally agree with you about the disparity between cost to make versus the sale price. That being said, I am curious how much the research of the vaccine cost Moderna.
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@krenaud @rbreich That’s what I am thinking. The American people shouldn’t be gouged especially since we helped fund the rollout of the vaccine. I am more curious about the cost of the underlying technology, mRNA platform, that was researched for at least a decade before implementing a COVID vaccine. @rbreich @ekennedy80 reading this it sounds like the companies should have been able to recover those costs too considering others have provided some of the research. @ekennedy80 @krenaud @rbreich government funded scientist contributed to the mRNA solution.  @ekennedy80 @krenaud @rbreich That doesn't make sense. You don't want to distort equilibrium prices as that creates dead weight loss. You just want to give people money. @ekennedy80 @krenaud @rbreich if people have a hard time affording the necessities of life, give them MONEY. don't make things artificially cheap, as that creates deadweight loss. this is all well established econ. if there's a *market failure*, e.g. a monopoly, then by all means fix that by breaking it up. but don't *create* a market failure by distorting the equilibrium price of goods or services. @ekennedy80 @rbreich @cshentrup big pharma makes lots of profits in other countries with much lower prices. Why should oligopolies be unregulated when they obviously abuse their position? The US prices are $82/vial and $159 for 5 KwikPens. @ekennedy80 @rbreich @cshentrup the antiemetic medication I take before cancer treatment is $48/pill. In the US it costs over $700 per pill. @cshentrup @ekennedy80 @krenaud @rbreich That’s just bonkers. No we don’t have to break up Moderna, that would mean fewer drugs we can however regulate the ,market effectively @ekennedy80 @krenaud @rbreich @ekennedy80 @krenaud @rbreich @krenaud @ekennedy80 @rbreich What I've never understood is why the government doesn't put the patent in the public domain whenever they've funded the R&D. @rbreich @JYeo18 @ekennedy80 or even better, licence the tech for free, but requiring the licensees to give back to the public in some way. @JYeo18 @krenaud @ekennedy80 @rbreich Find me a government that puts cooperation and mutual benefit over capitalism and corporate profit and I'll vote for them for the rest of my days. @mrdalesmith @JYeo18 @krenaud @rbreich 100% agree! The government we vote for also needs to make sure there is still some type of carrot put out to incentivize cooperation and mutual benefit. Unfortunatley, $$$$ is the mother of all motivators. @JYeo18 @krenaud @ekennedy80 @rbreich  @krenaud @ekennedy80 @rbreich  @_L1vY_ @zakyfarms @ekennedy80 @rbreich For some reason, I was thinking "corporate vandalism" might be a better name to use for it. @ShingoMouse @zakyfarms @ekennedy80 @rbreich It's definitely predatory. But they love to get public funding, and then restrict public use, while counting the profits as private.  AFAIK, a lot of the research on mRNA vaccines had been done in universities and public research facilities. “(…) the path to mRNA vaccines drew on the work of hundreds of researchers over more than 30 years.” @babumenos @ekennedy80 @rbreich Correct, public research is the impetus for most of our advances. The Internet, RNA vaccines, DNA sequencing, etc. Publicly funded research which is then taken and turned into profit generated systems by the corporate welfare state that the USA subsidizes... @PacketsAndBolts @ekennedy80 @rbreich Well, the US and all other countries of the Global North. @ekennedy80 @rbreich after the literal billions the government gave them? I doubt all that much out of their own pockets, so to speak.  @ekennedy80 @rbreich I think, after making 19 billion profit out of this, the research has been paid already. @ekennedy80 @rbreich not American but I recall seeing that a couple of billion $ were given to moderna for them to perform the research needed. And I would be shocked if what they based their vaccine off wasn't publicly funded as well. @ekennedy80 @rbreich my understanding is that their research was funded by the government How much did it cost tax payers? How much did Moderna profit through the government "fast tracking" approvals? How much did Moderna profit through the government marketing the vaccine? Face it, Moderna is greedy. |
@ekennedy80 @rbreich Moderna got over $1bn from operation warp speed and has sold a LOT of doses. There is no chance that they aren't already making a big profit.