On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 15:26:14 -0400, Boron Elgar wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 09:35:23 -0500, Sqwertz >
> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 18 Apr 2021 10:01:46 -0400, jmcquown wrote:

>>> You're not taking into account the cost of R&D, manufacturing and
>>> distribution of those free vaccines. That's not cheap!
>>
>>They were given $2 billion each by the Feds. And the process they
>>used was pretty easy. Phizer and Moderna beat NovaVax to market with
>>NovaVax's own technique (spike protein), invented 15-20 year ago.
>>NovaVax even had the first success with this one but they couldn't
>>even mass produce enough for trials. Phizer and Moderna had the
>>facilities to crank it out, NovaVax didn't.
>
> Pfizer was not part of Warp Speed. The feds did have an agreement to
> PURCHASE doses if they proved effective, but they were not funded like
> Moderna & AStraZeneca.

Huh. I didn't know that. So Phizer is selling doses to the
government at prices that don't account for the $2 billion front
money? That was an excellent <ahem> move on their part. They can
claim their funding was private and markups appropriately in
perpetuity.

Like I said, the tech was already there courtesy of NovaVax - it was
easy to develop. Phizer probably even already had it before Warp
Speed. So why take a $2B up front contract? Drug companies suck
[money].

-sw