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Bojan Pancevski Profile picture
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6 May, 11 tweets, 4 min read
The US & EU said they would consider waving the intellectual property protection for Covid-19 vaccines. Here's a thread about that:
1.there currently are 3 major types of vaccine available: mRNA (BioNTech,Moderna), viral vector (AstraZeneca,J&J), inactivated virus (Sinopharm)
2. India, China and Russia are huge exporters of vaccines to the whole world. And the West is not hoarding vaccines - only the the U.S. was sitting on AstraZeneca doses, which it now said it would pass on to other nations. Vaccine makers produce as many vaccines as they can atm.
3. The most popular western vaccines are @AstraZeneca-Oxford, and @BioNTech_Group - @pfizer. AstraZeneca *does not sell for profit*. Germany's BioNTech owns the vax IP; it took many months for Pfizer, a giant, to learn how to make BioNTech's vaccine & then manufacture at scale
4. BioNTech is a German company, which now collaborates with over 30 pharma firms to make more vaccines. Yet Germany *has in no way been prioritized over other countries.* It's first come, first served. If Germany were to waive IP rights, would other countries get more doses?
5. @moderna_tx , the other mRNA vax producer, said it would not enforce patents during the pandemic. The mRNA technology is complex, expensive and reliant on very scarce raw materials wsj.com/articles/moder…
6. Alternative proposal: rich nations to subsidise manufacturing and provide doses to developing countries.
7. Great vaccine exports chart via @jfkirkegaard. No one is hoarding; the US is racing to cover its own need, while the EU is selflessly exporting doses even though not even all priority groups have been vaccinated there. India is 3rd biggest exporter, despite what's happening
8. Angela Merkel’s government is opposing the US initiative to suspend Covid-19 vax patents:”Vaccine manufacturing is limited by production capacities and high quality standards, not patents” So high-tech shots can’t be made at the local soap factory spiegel.de/politik/deutsc…
9. Germany's @jensspahn pushes back against US patent proposal: If US wants to increase vax supply, they should start exporting like the EU (Biden/Trump admins both pursued American vaccines for Americans policy). Patents are not the issue, manufacturing is.
10. BioNTech recruited major rivals to help mRNA vax production bc even partner Pfizer struggled to increase supply. They've been seeking new partners since last year & managed to triple production targets to 3bn doses in 2021. Wld patent waiver help?
wsj.com/articles/biont…
11. France's Europe Minister: removing vax patents offers no short-term benefit. Allowing vax export does, yet the US exports nothing, while EU exports 50% of the vaccines it makes

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Bojan Pancevski Profile picture
4 May
“We need to ensure really high vaccination rates world-wide. Otherwise, no one will be safe,” said ⁦@BioNTech_Group⁩ CEO Ugur Sahin. Via ⁦@WSJ⁩ wsj.com/articles/biont…
The surge of coronavirus infections in developing countries such as India amid a relative scarcity of vaccine supply means that the pandemic will keep spreading until mid-2022, according to the inventors of the first western-authorized Covid-19 vaccine wsj.com/articles/biont…
Mixing and matching of different types of vaccines, including combining shots based on mRNA technology such as @BioNTech_Group's with the so-called viral vector vaccines like that of @AstraZeneca could be necessary to end the pandemic, said Dr. Türeci wsj.com/articles/biont…
Read 5 tweets
Bojan Pancevski Profile picture
6 Mar
Why Covid-19 vaccine rollout falls short of past global campaigns. Decades-old successes benefited from more trust in science, less political polarization, less complicated procedures. My piece via ⁦@WSJ⁩ wsj.com/articles/why-c…
NYC vaccinated 6m people in less than a month in 1947, Yugoslavia jabbed *18m in three weeks* in 1972, The Netherlands was a global vax leader with Swine Flu in 2009. Why does Covid-19 vaccination fall short of past achievements? wsj.com/articles/why-c…
Vax scarcity is a problem, but so is fading trust in public institutions and science, an underfunded healthcare infrastructure, a less capable government, the rise of vaccine skepticism and even political polarization. wsj.com/articles/why-c…
Read 15 tweets
Bojan Pancevski Profile picture
18 Feb
Many people can’t wait to get a Covid-19 vaccine. But people in Europe are balking at taking one developed by ⁦@AstraZeneca⁩ - after the EU pressured the company to supply more vaccines. With ⁦@margheritamvs⁩ ⁦@NBisserbe⁩ ⁦@WSJ⁩ wsj.com/articles/these…
Health-worker unions say thou­sands of their mem­bers refuse to take one of the three Covid-19 vac­cines avail­able in the re­gion be­cause of con­cerns over ef­fi­cacy and re­ports of side ef­fects, the lat­est set­back for the EU’s slow roll­out wsj.com/articles/these…
Af­ter de­mand­ing that @AstraZeneca de­liver more doses to the bloc, some EU lead­ers crit­i­cized the vac­cine. French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron said last month that the shot was “quasi-in­ef­fec­tive” for peo­ple over 65 wsj.com/articles/these…
Read 9 tweets
Bojan Pancevski Profile picture
9 Feb
A majority of foreign-born Germans and their offspring now support center-right parties, a development showing how decades of immigration into Europe has transformed the continent’s demographics and is reshaping politics in unexpected ways. My @WSJ report wsj.com/articles/immig…
Germans with foreign roots are increasingly voting for the center-right, providing a new pool of voters for Merkel's conservatives as the country’s social fabric becomes increasingly diverse & traditional political allegiances dissolve with integration wsj.com/articles/immig…
“We are seeing a process of normalization,” said Viola Neu, the author of the study. As migrants become economically & culturally more integrated, get naturalized & gain the right to vote, they tend to shift support from the center-left to the center-right wsj.com/articles/immig…
Read 16 tweets
Bojan Pancevski Profile picture
5 Jan
Some facts on EU vaccine procurement:
1. The EU only ordered 200m doses from @BioNTech_Group & @pfizer on *November 11,* when it was already behind in the queue (the US ordered on July 22). The EU *refused* an offer to order 500m doses. Image
2. Despite the BioNTech/Pfizer jab winning the global race, the EU stuck to 200m. On November 17 however it ordered 400m doses from CureVac, German firm that hadn't even started Phase3 trial. Only on *December 29* did the EU order additional 100m, again trailing the US
3. Data indicating that BioNTech/Pfizer were ahead of the pack emerged already in July. On *October 6* the EU regulator EMA started a rolling review based on extremely promising late-stage trial data, which was obviously available to EU officials wsj.com/articles/germa…
Read 10 tweets
Bojan Pancevski Profile picture
4 Jan
Big scoop: health ministers in EU’s pharma powers Germany,France,Italy & Netherlands joined forces to obtain vaccines for the bloc (kinda nascent EU Op Warpspeed) but their leaders forced them to abdicate responsibility to the Commission, which then failed to get enough doses 1/3
This is the letter sent by the healthcare minister to the Commission, drafted in slightly apologetic tone, asking the EU executive to take over vaccine procurement. Result: the EU, pop 450m, is now stuck with mere 200m BioNTech-Pfizer and 80m Moderna jabs by the autumn (at best).
Meanwhile, the new coronavirus variant that has spread from Britain could make obtaining herd immunity more difficult: as many as 80% of the population might need to be immunised to halt the pandemic wsj.com/articles/covid…
Read 5 tweets

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