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A comment on BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year. Parent comment

Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by wil421 on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @11:44AM (#28130244)
It costs the same in the US and Germany, $19.50. There will always be a scummy Martin Shkreli[1] type and Germany is not immune to this. See VW and Wireguard. BaFin seemed to ignore red flags presumably because it was another darling of the German economy similar to VW.

The US also moves very slow legally but the reckoning is coming for Pharmaceutical price gouging. Lots and lots of hype in the past few years about it.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/09/martin-shkre...

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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by OJFord on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @12:19PM (#28130713)
> There will always be a scummy Martin Shkreli[1] type and Germany is not immune to this. See VW and Wireguard.

I assume you are referring to Wirecard [0] and not privy to information which I am not about the stellar Wireguard [1]? :)

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal

[1] - https://www.wireguard.com/

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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by wil421 on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @10:07PM (#28137114)
Yes autocorrect on my phone.
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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by albatross13 on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @11:56AM (#28130423)
How did you figure out it was 19.50 a dose in the US? As far as I've seen, Pfizer has all but ensured their contracts with various governments are not publicly available.
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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by wil421 on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @12:05PM (#28130534)
It’s mentioned in this article[1] but they won’t tell you the specific contract. I assumed it was universal but I guess Federal and State agencies negotiate their own contracts.

My state will pay for it wether or not you have insurance.

> Pfizer's agreement with the federal government is the most lucrative to date. The government agreed to buy 100 million doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, being developed with German biotech firm BioNTech, for $1.95 billion. That works out to about $20 per dose.[2]

[1]https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/pfizer-eyes-higher-covid...

[2] https://www.gpb.org/news/shots-health-news/2020/08/08/prices...

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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by odiroot on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @12:33PM (#28130898)
> See VW and Wireguard

You probably meant Wirecard.

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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by suction on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @12:09PM (#28130589)
What VW did was dirty, but didn't really include a component of price gouging. Wiregard was straight-up fraud, by an agent working for Russia and greediness paired with stupidity on part of the CEO etc.

Not to diminish the negative effects for the reputation of Germany of these two cases, but they both aren't an expression of libertarianism like the idea that a company has no moral obligations to offer an important drug for an affordable price, but should make as much money as possible from it, which wouldn't fly in Germany.

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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by manuel_w on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @12:42PM (#28131018)
> by an agent working for Russia

You're talking about Jan Marsalek, right? That he worked for Russia is new to me.

According to [1], he did business in Russia, but that doesn't make him work for Russia. If you have more information in that, I'd be interested to hear.

[1] https://thebell.io/en/what-links-russia-to-germany-s-wirecar...

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Re:BioNTech alone could lift German economy by 0.5% this year by suction on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @02:21AM (#28138689)
Hard to find an English speaking source for it (we know how friendly the UK and Russian governments are lately), but for example, here https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/wirecard-jan-marsaleks-spuren-... are claims that Marsalek himself admitted relations with the FSB.
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