MinnMan

Maybe this belongs in P&R?

So, Warp Speed contracted with Pfizer to buy 100 million doses, and with Moderna to buy another 100 million. Vaccination takes 2 doses/person, so that will vaccinate less than a third of the country. 100 million vaccinated, 225 million left waiting?

And in August, when Pfizer offered more, the Trump Administration declined to purchase them.
(see also Forbes story on same topic)

It seems that the EU has purchase the available supplies instead.

Spokesperson at Health and Human Services says
"We are confident that we will have 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine as agreed to in our contract,” a spokesperson for Health and Human Services told Forbes, “and beyond that, we have five other vaccine candidates, including 100 million doses on the way from Moderna.”"

Other vaccine candidates? Which of these are likely to be anywhere near approval in the next few months?

Secretary Azar says that there will be enough vaccine for everybody in the second quarter of 2021

but no word on sources and supplies beyond the 100 million people (200 million doses) already contracted.

Discouraging.

skookum

Johnson and Johnson should be near the end of their phase III trials and I am not sure about the status of Astra Zeneca. They had announced results, but needed to do some more work on their stats, and they were starting another trial.

The problems right now seem to be supply chain and logistics, they will eventually get sorted out.

There are a whole pile of other vaccines out there in phase II or III trials, I expect we will see more successes but whether the others will be able to scale up to the numbers needed is another question.

MinnMan

But hard to understand why the Trump admin passed on the additional 500 million doses Pfizer offered them. Or rather, us. That would have been enough for all.

skookum

I'm glad he didn't, it means we can get some.

FBOATSB 

There will be enough. These big Pharmas can gear up 24-7 production lines and in addition license other big Pharmas to gear up 24-7 production of their particular formula. You don't want to be discarding expired batches that couldn't be used fast enough either. What you leave out is the roughly half the population that wouldn't accept a vaccine unless they were strapped down and anesthetized.

tyrion

Remember, we're talking about a guy that couldn't run a casino.

79pmooney

I thought good business was jumping in on an opportunity to get in on something early that everyone was going to want. And that our "CEO" might be a mediocre president but business was where he shone,

A million COVID-19 tests by April, Vaccines by elections. Vaccines soon for all. Have I been hallucinating?

skookum

I think if you had a hundred million doses ready to go right now, many would be wasted because the logistics of vaccinating huge numbers in a short perioed of time haven't been worked out yet.

Warp speed project appears to have worked well, so far. Keep your fingers crossed that it will continue to do so.

Seattle Forrest

​​​​​​Sadly this. And nobody can even blame them. We're between a rock and a hard place.

Also I think children are last in line, they're less susceptance to getting sick and people seem to assume that means they spread it less too.

Clyde1820

An initial contracting for vaccine coverage for "the most-vital" portions of society (frontline healthcare workers, and the most-vulnerable in society) makes sense. So, X hundreds of millions of doses makes sense, for an initial arrangement.

Doesn't mean they'll cease production of it, if succeeding.

Just means the market will take over, at that point, and/or further contracting will be considered then.

Indeed, vaccine R&D groups aren't doing this for nothing. They're businesses and they're seeking to be compensated for their work. Same as anyone else. And so it makes sense to initiate their cycle with a vast infusion of cash and commitment up to a point, but then to allow them to go whole hog on their own once up and running. I suspect that so long as there's high demand for such vaccines, then such groups will continue production for years until the market forces begin changing things. (Same as with any other product.)

Doesn't sound like "stalling" to me, really. Just sounds like a two-phase approach: 1) initial funding for R&D and first run of product, given the urgency; followed by 2) ongoing normal-and-customary efforts in the open market.

Trevtassie

Rest of the world goes "We've seen how your open market works in the USA in the medical industry, and we ain't having a bar of it" and then uses the buying power of a government to reduce prices to a rational level.

Hondo Gravel

I thought 5G was suppose to wipe out covid

CliffordK

We've been vaccinating about half the population for the Flu for quite some time now. It can be done.

The big problem will be handling. Storing at -80, then warming up and injecting. Are they individual vials, or small batch vials?

Hopefully the pharmaceutical companies have already been experimenting with long-term storage of similar mRNA vaccines. It is possible that if kept in ideal storage temperatures, they would last for quite some time.

My guess is that once the vaccine is finally available, there will be a big rush of people asking for it, especially elderly and vulnerable. Some areas will undoubtedly have a school mandate.

genec

The honest truth is that Pfizer did not really benefit from "warp speed." They did this on their own dime.

Just ensuring "credit" goes where it is due... some folks like to "steal valor."

https://www.politifact.com/article/2...operation-war/

genec

No no, it brings COVID... com'on Hondo... try to keep up with the inane conspiracies.

(meanwhile, have another beer and throw another steak on the "barbie." )

Hondo Gravel

Day off bike ... beer iced down and chicken quarters on the smoker. I will need 6G to cook the chicken...

genec

Hell, I'd cook the chicken for only a 20... "6G," man you are expensive.

And you have the right kinda beer... "cold." (best beer: free and cold)

Truth be told, I am particular about my beer... until someone hands me a free, cold one.

CliffordK

I noticed the Pfizer contract seemed to be that they would only get paid if the vaccine was approved. So, if they made 250 million doses, and it flopped, they would be out all the money stocking up. Not a lot of incentive to start early (other than being the first off the block in a competitive potentially short-term market.

Hondo Gravel

very cold and almost free comes out to about 55 cents a beer. You can guess what beer it is. It has the nickname called Colorado Gatorade

genec

Sure, but the US is not their only potential customer... They have no reason to be locked to the US, at all... this is a world wide issue... in spite of what some may think. They had plenty of "other" incentive.

billridesbikes

Good Grief, even Pfizer’s own press release says they’re part of Operation Warp Speed. No money went specifically into the vaccine’s RnD, but Pfizer absolutely did take the promise of government money, and was forced last week to walk back some clueless statements made recently by one of their VPs and update their webpage. These promise for payment schemes for vaccines are very common with Governments and GSEs. The company wouldn’t have committed to it if they didn’t believe they had almost a sure thing. They aren’t stupid; phase II was already underway.
https://investors.pfizer.com/investo...2/default.aspx

Germany supplied the actual RnD money, half a billion, for the vaccine development through BioNTech. So it was still a government funded vaccine, just not the US government.

CliffordK

As far as I can tell, it is an international company with global production resources. Trump is trying to write an "America Jumps to the Front of the Line" executive order.

And we may get a big chunk of the product that is made in the USA. But the product made in Europe will probably stay in Europe.

They still should be giving us the 100 million doses (50 million people) shortly, but then production may drop to a crawl.

blacknbluebikes 

1. Pfizer didn't need the money, so why accept a lot of political entanglement? (read: government oversight)
2. A lot of people seem to ignore the fact that six firms are engaged in Warp Speed, not just two. When PFE and Moderna cross the line, the others don't just quit the race.
3. Some of these other vax candidates will be a lot easier to distribute. That makes them, in many ways, much more valuable than the mRNA solutions.

skookum

The Sanofi vaccine had problems in phase 1/2 trials and is not proceeding with phase 3, until their vaccine is reformulated. That might actually put them out of the race.If they do it that way, how are they going to get enough infections to get good statistics?

I am very interested to see results for the Jonson and Johnson vaccine, which are expected in January. It is one dose and doesn't need ultra refrigeration which should make it much easier to distribute.

I think this shows the value of all the competing techniques in the Warp Speed program. You simply don't know which are going to work until you try them. Better to have multiple candidates.