Rather than impeding vaccine distribution, could this not ensure profit motive to incentivize further vaccine distribution? A company motivated by profit and distributing vaccines at a loss might not be too excited about doing that very quickly, and try to spend some of their efforts on more profitable things. At a good enough profit, they’ll put in 100%.
Did they guarantee lower prices for developing countries, though? Developed countries can pay extra without too much harm, but I’d worry about developing ones.
I think open-sourcing any IP (either by govt’s buying it and putting it out for free, or by developing it with that intention from the beginning like Oxford had planned) would largely solve this problem. You wouldn’t need to have contracts or govts mandate that companies don’t profit during the pandemic. There would just be an actually competitive market for generic vaccines.
Vaccine availability in poor countries is abysmal. Which is the main issue I see with the IP-protecting approach to vaccine development. If you just let companies set monopoly prices, as other commenters have suggested, poor countries will be priced out.
Rather than impeding vaccine distribution, could this not ensure profit motive to incentivize further vaccine distribution? A company motivated by profit and distributing vaccines at a loss might not be too excited about doing that very quickly, and try to spend some of their efforts on more profitable things. At a good enough profit, they’ll put in 100%.
Did they guarantee lower prices for developing countries, though? Developed countries can pay extra without too much harm, but I’d worry about developing ones.
I think open-sourcing any IP (either by govt’s buying it and putting it out for free, or by developing it with that intention from the beginning like Oxford had planned) would largely solve this problem. You wouldn’t need to have contracts or govts mandate that companies don’t profit during the pandemic. There would just be an actually competitive market for generic vaccines.
Vaccine availability in poor countries is abysmal. Which is the main issue I see with the IP-protecting approach to vaccine development. If you just let companies set monopoly prices, as other commenters have suggested, poor countries will be priced out.