Thread by @doctorow

#Moderna is quadrupling the cost of #covid #vaccines, from $26/dose to $110-130. CEO Stephane Bancel calls the price hike "consistent with the value" of the #MRNA vaccines. Moderna's costs are $2.85/dose, for a 4,460% markup on every dose:

arstechnica.com/science/2023/0… 1/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/nat… 2/

Now, obviously the manufacturing costs are only part of the cost of making a vaccine: there's also all the high-risk capital that goes into doing the basic research. 3/

Whenever a pharma company like Moderna hikes its prices, we're reminded that the rewards are commensurate with these risks.

But the story of the Moderna vaccine isn't one of a company taking huge gambles with shareholder dollars. 4/

It's the story of the US government giving billions and billions of dollars to a private firm, which will now *charge* the US government - and the American people - a 4,460% markup on the resulting medicine. 5/

Writing for @TheProspect, @LMeyersohn reminds us of Moderna's origins: the #NIH spent $1.4B developing the underlying technology and then the US government bought $8b worth of vaccines at $16/dose, giving Moderna a guaranteed 460% margin on each jab:

prospect.org/health/2023-01… 6/

Moderna clearly does not feel that the public billions it received came with any obligation to serve the public interest. The company falsified its patent applications, omitting the NIH scientists who co-developed the vaccine, claiming sole ownership:

blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/01/06/nih… 7/

As Meyersohn writes, this omission allows Moderna to block the NIH from licensing the vaccine to foreign manufacturers - including vaccine manufacturers in the global south, home to many powerhouse producers of vaccines:

pluralistic.net/2022/08/24/wai… 8/

Moderna claims to have capitulated to the NIH on patents, but it's a lie. Even as they announced that they would stop excluding NIH scientists from their patents, they quietly filed for a continuance to let them renew their exclusive claim later:

nytimes.com/2021/12/17/us/… 9/

This maneuver, combined with #Astrazeneca reneging on its promise to open its vaccine - a move engineered by #BillGates - has deprived billions of the world's poorest people of access to vaccines. 10/

Many of these people were previously blocked from accessing #AIDS drugs when the #GatesFoundation teamed up to block #WTO #VaccineWaivers:

pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/pub… 11/

These #immunucompromised, #unvaccinated people are at increased risk of contracting covid, and when they do, they are sick for longer, creating more opportunities for viral mutation and new, more virulent #variants. 12/

That was where we stood *before* Moderna announced its 400% vaccine price-hike. Now, millions of Americans will *also* be blocked from accessing vaccines, opening the door for rampant, repeated infections, more mutations, and more variants. 13/

As @alaw202 of @SSWorks told Meyersohn, at that price, the US will not be able to achieve #HerdImmunity.

What will Moderna do with the billions it reaps through price-gouging? It won't be research. 14/

To date, the company has spent >20% of its covid windfall profits on stock buybacks and dividends, manipulating its stock price, with more to come:

levernews.com/how-big-pharma… 15/

It's not an outlier. Big Pharma is a machine for commercializing publicly funded research and then laundering the profits with #FinancialEngineering. The largest pharma companies each spend more on stock buybacks than research:

levernews.com/how-big-pharma… 16/

Moderna didn't have a single successful product for its first decade of operation: it is only a going concern because it got billions in free public research and billions more in public commitments to buy its products at a huge markup. 17/

It wasn't always this way. Until the 1990s, pharma companies that commercialized public research were bound to license terms that required "reasonable pricing." NIH inventions were subject to non-exclusive licensing terms, ensuring a competitive market. 18/

The NIH could act to stem Moderna's #profiteering. Moderna's vaccine (like virtually all mRNA vaccines) uses NIH patent 10,960,070 - though Moderna doesn't license the '070 patent. 19/

The NIH could use the threat of a patent infringement suit to force Moderna to put pandemic resilience and access to vaccines over financial engineering and executive bonuses. 20/

When it comes to patent enforcement to protect the public interest, the USG has a long history of channeling King Log, letting companies price-gouge with products built on public research.

media.nature.com/original/magaz… 21/

The states are stepping in where the feds have failed to act, spinning up their own pharma production capacity to create a #PublicOption for medicine - think of California's move to produce #insulin and other meds:

prospect.org/health/its-tim… 22/

Or Massachusetts's #MassBiologics, the "only non-profit, FDA-licensed manufacturer of vaccines" in the USA, which sells its generic #tetanus and #diptheria vaccines nationwide:

umassmed.edu/massbiologics/ 23/

The US has a long way to go when it comes to using public production to offer competitive discipline to private pharma. Sweden privatized its pharma in 1970. Cuba got there in 1960, and is a pharma powerhouse:

pluralistic.net/2021/11/28/som… 24/

Meyersohn closes with a warning and a promise: though public covid vaccines are a long way away, new vaccines for #RSV and even #cancer are in the pipeline, and without "substantial intervention," Moderna will be a "harbinger...of crises of inequitable access to come." 25/