Iso, Wrong. Total BS.
Flembo, The molecular biology required to produce either of the two RNA vaccines is not a big secret. It's not even new technology. However, manufacturing a vaccine is not a trivial pursuit, if you want consistency of manufacture, safety, and purity. Getting the RNA and the lipids that form an envelope for the RNA together is a sophisticated process that not just anyone can do with a cookbook. In my opinion, abrogation of the patents might not get us anywhere except into more hot water, where a plethora of new less sophisticated manufacturers are making vaccines without strict controls and supervision by regulatory authorities, in part because there might be too many of them to oversee adequately. The FDA has a limited number of persons with the scientific skills required to review and regulate all these efforts; such individuals have been working their butts off for the past 18 months. We already see how difficult it is to get acceptance by the public (and certain persons on this thread). All we need is a bad batch made by an inexperienced company to legitimately alienate the public, but more importantly a bad batch could result in hundreds of thousands or millions of persons who think they are protected but in fact are not, because they received a bad product. The major issue in producing sufficient doses of the vaccines hinges on the very fact that so many hundreds of millions of doses are needed. The potential need is unprecedented in history. Yet there is not an unlimited supply of the many "ingredients" (enzymes, ribonucleotides that are the building blocks of RNA, various chromatography supplies needed to purify the RNA, etc) that are required to synthesize huge amounts of RNA or of the very specific lipids needed to package them. This also affects companies, other than Pfizer and Moderna, who are still in development of new RNA-based COVID vaccines. Many of them are stymied because the supply of the raw materials to make RNA and the supply of lipids and agents needed for purification, such as it is, is funneled to Moderna and Pfizer preferentially, because they are the ones with the EUAs. In order to get on the preferred list, a company needs to make it all the way to a phase 3 trial. Such legitimate efforts are caught right now in a Catch-22, until the supply chain is beefed up. So even if there were no patents, I doubt the supply of vaccine(s) could be rapidly increased. I also think this problem (lack of doses) now mostly applies to the rest of the world. By now in the US it seems that anyone who wants to be vaccinated can get vaccinated. We are down to those who don't want to be vaccinated, at this point.
Flembo, The molecular biology required to produce either of the two RNA vaccines is not a big secret. It's not even new technology. However, manufacturing a vaccine is not a trivial pursuit, if you want consistency of manufacture, safety, and purity. Getting the RNA and the lipids that form an envelope for the RNA together is a sophisticated process that not just anyone can do with a cookbook. In my opinion, abrogation of the patents might not get us anywhere except into more hot water, where a plethora of new less sophisticated manufacturers are making vaccines without strict controls and supervision by regulatory authorities, in part because there might be too many of them to oversee adequately. The FDA has a limited number of persons with the scientific skills required to review and regulate all these efforts; such individuals have been working their butts off for the past 18 months. We already see how difficult it is to get acceptance by the public (and certain persons on this thread). All we need is a bad batch made by an inexperienced company to legitimately alienate the public, but more importantly a bad batch could result in hundreds of thousands or millions of persons who think they are protected but in fact are not, because they received a bad product. The major issue in producing sufficient doses of the vaccines hinges on the very fact that so many hundreds of millions of doses are needed. The potential need is unprecedented in history. Yet there is not an unlimited supply of the many "ingredients" (enzymes, ribonucleotides that are the building blocks of RNA, various chromatography supplies needed to purify the RNA, etc) that are required to synthesize huge amounts of RNA or of the very specific lipids needed to package them. This also affects companies, other than Pfizer and Moderna, who are still in development of new RNA-based COVID vaccines. Many of them are stymied because the supply of the raw materials to make RNA and the supply of lipids and agents needed for purification, such as it is, is funneled to Moderna and Pfizer preferentially, because they are the ones with the EUAs. In order to get on the preferred list, a company needs to make it all the way to a phase 3 trial. Such legitimate efforts are caught right now in a Catch-22, until the supply chain is beefed up. So even if there were no patents, I doubt the supply of vaccine(s) could be rapidly increased. I also think this problem (lack of doses) now mostly applies to the rest of the world. By now in the US it seems that anyone who wants to be vaccinated can get vaccinated. We are down to those who don't want to be vaccinated, at this point.