Peter wrote:
Brits don’t believe in buying British and I think too many are still reminded of the pinnacle of British engineering genius, second only to Concorde, known as the Vauxhall Viva, 50 years on
You could pick a better example of crummy British motor engineering – it’s not like there aren’t plenty of examples, and the Viva isn’t really British anyway! (It’s basically derived from an Opel Kadett, developed by the American company GM in Austria).
If you want to pick crummy 1970s British engineering, you could pick one of British Leyland’s notorious home grown products, like the Morris Marina or Austin Princess, or probably worst of the lot (with its square steering wheel), the Austin Allegro…
Peter wrote:
Won’t be Biontech for long; as posted here a few weeks back, Pfizer is about to ditch the Biontech co-operation.
So many mistakes in one sentence …
- Pfizer did not ditch any cooperation. They had a cooperation on the Covid vaccine, they have a cooperation on the Covid vaccine and they will have a cooperation on the Covid vaccine
- Beyond the Covid vaccine they never had a cooperation – and therefore there is nothing they could ditch
- Even in the completely absurd case that Pfizer would terminate the cooperation on the Covid vaccine, the IP would still belong to Biontech and therefore in such a hypothetical case the correct statement would be, that it won’t be Pfizer for long.
MedEwok wrote:
Maybe BioNTech should have partnered with Bayer to keep this a purely German operation, but then again Bayer might not be big in vaccines.
Boehringer Ingelheim would have been the partner of choice: Almost neighbors and in contrast to Bayer BI is really big in biologics manufacturing – even as a CMO. Both don’t have a huge US salesforce, however.
It’s pure speculation, but at the time when BionTech had to decide on a partner it was still largely unclear how this thing will finally develop and therefore how distribution will end up being. I’m quite sure that if they had know this will be such a big thing and governments will buy the entire stock anyways they would have chosen a different partner – you do not need a big commercial organization to sell to a handful of governments…
Great summary here of present sitution
The vaccines are highly effective against reinfection.
The new development in India is 13:00 onwards.
Malibuflyer wrote:
you do not need a big commercial organization to sell to a handful of governments…
Perhaps not. But you do need a company with a lot of experience of clinical development to take you through the trials and the applications.
Dealing with pharma vs biotech is like night and day. The former know exactly how to do every part of the process, and are fine so long as someone hands them the product. The latter can create a product but cannot do anything with it.
At the sharp end, in the RFP stage, the dumb questions you get asked by biotech about how to get to market are extraordinary.
I have not found a definitive answer about where the IP for the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine lies. I would be surprised if BioNTech retained full rights – that is not the usual model.
Malibuflyer wrote:
you do not need a big commercial organization to sell to a handful of governments…
No but as we can see, you need a huge infrastructure to satisfy demand. And that at the moment is the biggest issue of all.
Moderna just now failed to deliver their agreed quantity to Switzerland, which will most probably mean that lots of people won’t be vaccined for the summer. Hopefully we will get more Pfizer or they finally certify other vaccines. With the hubbub around AZ and JnJ (which actually is certified here but not delivering) it looks not too good.
Has anyone actually seen believable data for the other contenders like Sputnik V? Apparently they are more than willing to deliver but are snubbed by the EU and also Switzerland. If they are no good however, then it won’t make much sense to persue them.
Moderna just now failed to deliver their agreed quantity to Switzerland, which will most probably mean that lots of people won’t be vaccined for the summer.
The rest of the delivery will come this week instead Friday 16th when it was supposed to but let’s not let that stop us from some end-of-the world headlines about how a few days’ delay are going to end up in a #totalkatastrophe.
T28 wrote:
The rest of the delivery will come this week instead Friday 16th when it was supposed to
Good to hear… would be nice if the BAG would deliver such tidbits of information with their statements rather than stating it will delay vaccinations to past summer as they did…
As promised, a report of post-second dose reaction(s).
I got my second Moderna shot on Friday noon. By late afternoon I could tell something was going on in my body. Hard to explain, but it was a definite feeling that the cavalry was about to arrive. By about 8 pm I was so tired that I could barely keep me eyes open, by 9 pm I was in bed – and slept straight through till 10 am the next day. I normally have a hearty cooked breakfast, but didn’t feel like it and only had some fruit. Felt drowsy and tired with occasional shivers the whole day, but managed to go about my life and get the things done I wanted to do, although it cost me some effort. Again, went to bed much earlier than usual, but now the night was very different – couldn’t sleep (I normally sleep very well), felt a little feverish, but didn’t bother to measure. Finally got some sleep and again slept late today. Same as yesterday, no real appetite (very unusual for me!). Now feeling ok, if still a little dozy. Guess the FAA 48-hour no-fly mandate makes sense.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
No but as we can see, you need a huge infrastructure to satisfy demand. And that at the moment is the biggest issue of all.
I would estimate that less than 40% of capacity available in Europe to manufacture this kind of drugs is currently actually used for Covid vaccine. I’d even guess it’s more in the ballpark of 20%.
There are lots of CMOs around that have the capabilities but are currently not involved in manufacturing of Anti-Cov.
