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A comment on Oxford pledged to donate rights to their Covid Vaccine, then sold them to pharma. Parent comment

Re:Oxford pledged to donate rights to their Covid Vaccine, t... by open-source-ux on Sunday January 24, 2021 @10:41AM (#25892882)
That's not entirely fair. The other view: Oxford University pairs with a company with the global logistics and manufacturing capability to create billions of vaccine in record time. I much prefer the idea of a royalty-free vaccine open to all, but I also understand the more practical route of working with a company if it means faster delivery where time is of the essence.

The article posted here purposefully omits the cost price of the Oxford vaccine which is approximately £3 ($5). Even if AstraZeneca were to add a profit margin of a few dollars to the cost price (e.g. bring the cost to $10) that would still be cheaper than the vaccines from Biotech/Pfizer and Moderna.

Also, Oxford has always insited that they wanted to create a vaccine that would be as cheap as possible to manufacture so it would be affordable to treat people around the world.

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Re:Oxford pledged to donate rights to their Covid Vaccine, t... by croes on Sunday January 24, 2021 @11:54AM (#25893484)
Wouldn't you think there are multiple local companies that could handle the production? We need lots of vaccine in a short time. A few companies can't to that. And AstraZenecas current price for the vaccine doesn't need to be the price after the pandemic when corona shots are maybe as common as flu shots. The took the results of public funded research, can produce a vaccine without risk of loss and and chance of high profit in the future. And Oxfords insistence on low manufacturing costs, doesn't make it affordable if the IP is hold by a single company. It just raises the profit margin. Oxford should have insisted on a maximum markup to the manufacturing price.
[ Parent | on HN ]