Thanks you’ve put some effort into reading that article nice one.
From what I could see it lookked to me like they were looking at the total cost of developing and rolling out a new vaccine.
“In the report I’ve referenced they project around 12-14 billion USD for vaccinations from 2027 to and including 2030, summing to around 50 billion. And this is assuming the vaccine has been developed. They put another 10 billion on top for vaccine R&D.”
- Where did you get that from?” I couldn’t find the 10 billion figure for R&D I thought that was part of their total.
I don’t think they had this far cheaper situation mind which has already been developed and now “just” needs phase 3 tryial and manufacture/distribution. Also plans are already underway to minimise costs in an Indian factory. Costs vary wildly with vaccines—for example the covax vaccine was more like 5 dollars a dose (which I used as my figure here), wheras Moderna and other RNA vaccines were closer to 20. That’s a factor of 4 already. I’d imagine the Gates foundation will do a decent job of keeping prices down, who knows maybe even by a factor of 5-10x compared with if it was manfactured commercially in say America.
The article doesn’t talk much at all about they get their numbers which is a little annoying.
I did a little more digging, and through a WHO report referenced by the Gates Foundation in their article, I think I’ve found something that could be the source of the claims in the report I skimmed.
Portnoy, A., et al. (2022). The cost and cost-effectiveness of novel tuberculosis vaccines in low- and middle-income countries: a modelling study. medRxiv, 2022.05.04.22274654. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.04.22274654
Interestingly, the baseline scenario assumes a vaccine price similar to you, around 5 USD per dose in a 2-dose regiment, which in my naive reading seems to confirm that the bulk of the costs are in fact in logistics. Of course, the headline is that even if the costs here are higher than one would like, it’s still hugely cost-effective in terms of return on investment, and great news for the world as a whole!
Even if (on an extremely shallow read) it seems like it doesn’t quite cross GiveWell’s bar for cost-effectiveness. Unless I am confused about something. Again, if anyone knows if GiveWell has a take on this, I’d be very happy to see :)
“In the report I’ve referenced they project around 12-14 billion USD for vaccinations from 2027 to and including 2030, summing to around 50 billion. And this is assuming the vaccine has been developed. They put another 10 billion on top for vaccine R&D.”—
Where did you get that from?” I couldn’t find the 10 billion figure for R&D I thought that was part of their total.
Thanks for pointing out I forgot to mention where I got that from! It’s from Table B. Resources needed to accelerate R&D of new TB tools, 2023–2030, page 15 in the report.
I’m sure gates foundation are working very hard on keeping costs down, and let’s hope they succeed! I do have a feeling that the bulk of the costs for vaccinations come from the distribution and logistics rather than the production costs, but this is just my vague intuition.
New Incentives, a GiveWell recommended charity, uses roughly 100 USD per vaccination.
I’m not sure how this new trial impacts Stop TB Partnership’s expectations for development costs, but hopefully it turns out to be much cheaper than their expert group estimated at the time of the report being written :)
If you have the time I’m sure they’d be happy to answer an email!
Thanks you’ve put some effort into reading that article nice one.
From what I could see it lookked to me like they were looking at the total cost of developing and rolling out a new vaccine.
“In the report I’ve referenced they project around 12-14 billion USD for vaccinations from 2027 to and including 2030, summing to around 50 billion. And this is assuming the vaccine has been developed. They put another 10 billion on top for vaccine R&D.”
- Where did you get that from?” I couldn’t find the 10 billion figure for R&D I thought that was part of their total.
I don’t think they had this far cheaper situation mind which has already been developed and now “just” needs phase 3 tryial and manufacture/distribution. Also plans are already underway to minimise costs in an Indian factory. Costs vary wildly with vaccines—for example the covax vaccine was more like 5 dollars a dose (which I used as my figure here), wheras Moderna and other RNA vaccines were closer to 20. That’s a factor of 4 already. I’d imagine the Gates foundation will do a decent job of keeping prices down, who knows maybe even by a factor of 5-10x compared with if it was manfactured commercially in say America.
The article doesn’t talk much at all about they get their numbers which is a little annoying.
I did a little more digging, and through a WHO report referenced by the Gates Foundation in their article, I think I’ve found something that could be the source of the claims in the report I skimmed.
Portnoy, A., et al. (2022). The cost and cost-effectiveness of novel tuberculosis vaccines in low- and middle-income countries: a modelling study. medRxiv, 2022.05.04.22274654. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.04.22274654
Interestingly, the baseline scenario assumes a vaccine price similar to you, around 5 USD per dose in a 2-dose regiment, which in my naive reading seems to confirm that the bulk of the costs are in fact in logistics. Of course, the headline is that even if the costs here are higher than one would like, it’s still hugely cost-effective in terms of return on investment, and great news for the world as a whole!
Even if (on an extremely shallow read) it seems like it doesn’t quite cross GiveWell’s bar for cost-effectiveness. Unless I am confused about something. Again, if anyone knows if GiveWell has a take on this, I’d be very happy to see :)
Thanks for pointing out I forgot to mention where I got that from! It’s from Table B. Resources needed to accelerate R&D of new TB tools, 2023–2030, page 15 in the report.
I’m sure gates foundation are working very hard on keeping costs down, and let’s hope they succeed! I do have a feeling that the bulk of the costs for vaccinations come from the distribution and logistics rather than the production costs, but this is just my vague intuition.
New Incentives, a GiveWell recommended charity, uses roughly 100 USD per vaccination.
I’m not sure how this new trial impacts Stop TB Partnership’s expectations for development costs, but hopefully it turns out to be much cheaper than their expert group estimated at the time of the report being written :)
If you have the time I’m sure they’d be happy to answer an email!