Cory DoctorowJan 25, 2023

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

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/moderna-may-match-pfizers-400-price-hike-on-covid-vaccines-report-says/

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:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/nationalize-moderna/#herd-immunity

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Moderna CEO: 400% price hike on COVID vaccine “consistent with the value”

Lawmakers have already called Pfizer's similar plan "pure and deadly greed."

Ars Technica
Show threadCharlotte Kirchhoff-LukatJan 25, 2023
@pluralistic This is an outrage, and a really good argument against letting these companies keep their exclusive rights to medications. Especially since Moderna massively profited from public research funds to develop the vaccine. (The same is true for every other vastly overpriced innovative medicine.) Giving a company public research funding should always come with public ownership of the result.
Edit: Imo this is a question of #OpenScience, even when the company is privately owned.
Show threadRicós has moved
@charlottekl @pluralistic
Just out of curiosity about differences between countries (I'm in Spain) the only people I see enraged about this are the ones that saw it coming from the start and were already angry. Every time I make these points to people who didn't have our viewpoint already, I'm met by blank stares or a "whatcha gonna do?" shrug. Does my experience resemble yours?
Jan 25, 2023 at 6:46pmWeb
Show threadCharlotte Kirchhoff-LukatJan 25, 2023
@enriquericos @pluralistic This is common, for sure!
My mum is a retired bio-medical researcher (who only ever worked for non-profit organisations) and will argue passionately for IP protection for these vaccines, and *some* IP protection is fair in the capitalist system we currently have (otherwise already big pharma companies just steal the results of small innovative companies like Biontech, and those die). But what is not fair is making the public pay through the nose for things we funded!
Show threadRicós has movedJan 26, 2023
@charlottekl @pluralistic
I'm alive thanks to people like your mum, send her my gratitude! And I understand that discussing IP requires nuance and expertise which lots of people, myself included, lack. Even the predatory practices you describe... I get that they're unknown to many (we can't all be informed about everything) But your last point is just so obvious. We ALL can understand it! yet lots of us can't even be bothered to have an opinion, much less a stance.
This worries me to no end