AstraZeneca

soulsaver

Thrugelmir said:

soulsaver said:

What is the rationale behind the not-for-profit?

Is profit all that matters? 

I didn't suggest it was - which is clear from my unedited post.
And AZ isn't a charity.

fred246

Seems stupidly cheap. Less than a pack of M&S sandwiches. I would have sold it for £20 if I was boss of AZ. Good price to save a life but not profiteering. Maybe the deal is that the government will approve some of their cancer drugs in the future.

Apodemus

fred246 said:

Seems stupidly cheap. Less than a pack of M&S sandwiches. I would have sold it for £20 if I was boss of AZ. Good price to save a life but not profiteering. Maybe the deal is that the government will approve some of their cancer drugs in the future.

I think you are ignoring the extent to which the rapid development of improved treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 was only achievable because of an unprecedented open-sharing of data, information and reagents between the normally secretive pharmaceutical companies and across the wider health sector.  That level of agreement was only possible because of industry-wide commitments that the immediate outputs would not be commercialised (although the spin-offs undoubtedly will be). 

Aretnap

csgohan4 said:

Sailtheworld said:

csgohan4 said:

Alexland said:

DireEmblem said:

How is 100 people being vaccinated a milestone?

It's france - that's about all the people that want the vaccine

Shocking numbers, my local GP  does that in a few hours.

What's this about written consent?? It isn't major surgery people are getting for goodness sake, hiding behind safety and doing things the 'right way'. 

They are just covering up for the fact they have a population sceptic of vaccines in general and their own processes are not helping. 

My GP's set up a flu jab evening for the over 50s. My heart sank when I arrived as the socially distanced queue was 200m long. However a team of 5 (a greeter plus two tables of a name ticker & injector) were running at a rate of at least 600 per hour by my calculations.

The queue moved at a reasonable walking pace. In the surgery, told to removed coats etc. by the greeter, name ticked off, no sitting down, injection administered and out the back door. 

100 French vaccinations is obviously laughable but the 1,000,000 UK vaccinations isn't good enough either. Apart from getting back to normal opening up the economy sooner than the rest of Europe should give the UK a competitive advantage. I suspect it'll be vaccine availability that proves to be the limiting factor though.

I think the mass vaccinations in large venues would be more efficient, turn up and get vaccinated. It is inefficient to be done at a GP surgery IMO, with limited space and social distancing and the disruption to normal day to day services this entails. 

how did the Uk did it with the small pox vaccine?

Europe's last major smallpox outbreak was in Yugoslavia in 1972. The Yugoslav government declared martial law, quarantined the affected areas, and vaccinated the vast majority of its 18 million people in less than a month, bringing the outbreak to an end.

So it's obviously possible to vaccinate lots of people very quickly if the vaccine is readily available and easy to handle and transport. However there were large stockpiles of smallpox vaccine available in the 1970s; supply of Covid vaccines is going to be a bigger bottleneck than distribution for the foreseeable future. (Noting that at the moment "the foreseeable future" roughly means "the next couple of days").

csgohan4

Aretnap said:

csgohan4 said:

Sailtheworld said:

csgohan4 said:

Alexland said:

DireEmblem said:

How is 100 people being vaccinated a milestone?

It's france - that's about all the people that want the vaccine

Shocking numbers, my local GP  does that in a few hours.

What's this about written consent?? It isn't major surgery people are getting for goodness sake, hiding behind safety and doing things the 'right way'. 

They are just covering up for the fact they have a population sceptic of vaccines in general and their own processes are not helping. 

My GP's set up a flu jab evening for the over 50s. My heart sank when I arrived as the socially distanced queue was 200m long. However a team of 5 (a greeter plus two tables of a name ticker & injector) were running at a rate of at least 600 per hour by my calculations.

The queue moved at a reasonable walking pace. In the surgery, told to removed coats etc. by the greeter, name ticked off, no sitting down, injection administered and out the back door. 

100 French vaccinations is obviously laughable but the 1,000,000 UK vaccinations isn't good enough either. Apart from getting back to normal opening up the economy sooner than the rest of Europe should give the UK a competitive advantage. I suspect it'll be vaccine availability that proves to be the limiting factor though.

I think the mass vaccinations in large venues would be more efficient, turn up and get vaccinated. It is inefficient to be done at a GP surgery IMO, with limited space and social distancing and the disruption to normal day to day services this entails. 

how did the Uk did it with the small pox vaccine?

Europe's last major smallpox outbreak was in Yugoslavia in 1972. The Yugoslav government declared martial law, quarantined the affected areas, and vaccinated the vast majority of its 18 million people in less than a month, bringing the outbreak to an end.

So it's obviously possible to vaccinate lots of people very quickly if the vaccine is readily available and easy to handle and transport. However there were large stockpiles of smallpox vaccine available in the 1970s; supply of Covid vaccines is going to be a bigger bottleneck than distribution for the foreseeable future. (Noting that at the moment "the foreseeable future" roughly means "the next couple of days").

They should ramp up supply, use existing  biotech/other industries which are lying dormant to boost production, but in reality this won't happen, probably due to regulatory/ red tape/ guise under 'safety'/ Litigation concerns. 

Aretnap

I have a great idea - let's just make more vaccine faster. Can't believe that nobody else has thought of it. 

NottinghamKnight

Aretnap said:

csgohan4 said:

Sailtheworld said:

csgohan4 said:

Alexland said:

DireEmblem said:

How is 100 people being vaccinated a milestone?

It's france - that's about all the people that want the vaccine

Shocking numbers, my local GP  does that in a few hours.

What's this about written consent?? It isn't major surgery people are getting for goodness sake, hiding behind safety and doing things the 'right way'. 

They are just covering up for the fact they have a population sceptic of vaccines in general and their own processes are not helping. 

My GP's set up a flu jab evening for the over 50s. My heart sank when I arrived as the socially distanced queue was 200m long. However a team of 5 (a greeter plus two tables of a name ticker & injector) were running at a rate of at least 600 per hour by my calculations.

The queue moved at a reasonable walking pace. In the surgery, told to removed coats etc. by the greeter, name ticked off, no sitting down, injection administered and out the back door. 

100 French vaccinations is obviously laughable but the 1,000,000 UK vaccinations isn't good enough either. Apart from getting back to normal opening up the economy sooner than the rest of Europe should give the UK a competitive advantage. I suspect it'll be vaccine availability that proves to be the limiting factor though.

I think the mass vaccinations in large venues would be more efficient, turn up and get vaccinated. It is inefficient to be done at a GP surgery IMO, with limited space and social distancing and the disruption to normal day to day services this entails. 

how did the Uk did it with the small pox vaccine?

Europe's last major smallpox outbreak was in Yugoslavia in 1972. The Yugoslav government declared martial law, quarantined the affected areas, and vaccinated the vast majority of its 18 million people in less than a month, bringing the outbreak to an end.

So it's obviously possible to vaccinate lots of people very quickly if the vaccine is readily available and easy to handle and transport. However there were large stockpiles of smallpox vaccine available in the 1970s; supply of Covid vaccines is going to be a bigger bottleneck than distribution for the foreseeable future. (Noting that at the moment "the foreseeable future" roughly means "the next couple of days").

Boris is no Tito.

eskbanker

NottinghamKnight said:

Boris is no Tito.

He's 75% of one....

Doshwaster

fred246 said:

Seems stupidly cheap. Less than a pack of M&S sandwiches. I would have sold it for £20 if I was boss of AZ. Good price to save a life but not profiteering. Maybe the deal is that the government will approve some of their cancer drugs in the future.

The good PR from selling it at "cost" is probably worth more than any extra profits which could have been obtained from a higher price, especially in developing countries. It's also a long term investment in future sales - dead people don't need drugs. Any "deal" won't include approvals as that would break every rule in the book but they would expect to be backed if another acquisition attempt is launched.
AZ is still a long term investment choice. It has one of the best pipelines in the industry but is never going to double your money overnight.

csgohan4

IanManc said:

csgohan4 said:

They should ramp up supply, use existing  biotech/other industries which are lying dormant to boost production,
Where are all these biotech industries lying dormant? 
 but in reality this won't happen, probably due to regulatory/ red tape/ guise under 'safety'/ Litigation concerns. 
Or more likely because the biotech industries "lying dormant" don't exist.

Germany has used the variety of private and public labs to ramp up testing, surely the UK can apply the same for manufacturing the new vaccine?
It is literally wartime and people are dying in droves. The time for my company not my problem shouldn't be priority, but how one can help to lift the country out of this crisis. 

https://www-ft-com.bucm.idm.oclc.org/content/0a7bc361-6fcc-406d-89a0-96c684912e46

What other suggestions do you have @ IanManc? I did put 'other' industries as well above not just limited to biotech. 

Although plenty of biotech companies that can potentially help, not including non biotech industries out there. Even Burberry were doing PPE at one point as an example:

https://www.ukbiotech.com/uk/portal/index.php