I thought this was some promising good news, especially for the developing world where conditions don't always exist to utilize the mRNA vaccines with their low temperature requirements:
"Two Texas scientists at a small non-profit research institute have created a new COVID-19 vaccine and offered it “no strings attached” to the world as a “people’s vaccine.” The scientists are following in the footsteps of Dr. Jonas Salk, the discoverer of the polio vaccine, who refused to profit from the discovery, considering it a gift to humanity."
"Drs. Peter Hotez, a well-known foe of the anti-vaccine lobby, and Maria Elena Bottazzi, a Honduran immigrant, announced the development of Corbevax on Dec. 28. The vaccine is as effective as the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and safe for children in trials."
"Bottazzi and Hotez work at Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) in Houston, affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine. Vaccine development was funded primarily by philanthropists and other private funders like Tito’s Vodka distillers. They received a small grant from the U.S. government."
“Two years into the pandemic, Corbevax is the first COVID vaccine designed specifically for global health. It is a milestone for global vaccine equity, something we believe will overcome vaccine hesitancy, and serves as a blueprint for how to develop a potent vaccine for pandemic use in the absence of substantial public funding,” they wrote."
"Hotez and Bottazzi collaborate with smaller vaccine producers in several countries, including Biological E in India, which is committed to producing 1 billion doses in 2022. The company has made 150 million doses already."
"CVD licenses the Corbevax technology with no strings attached. Biological E says it can produce Corbevax for $2.50 a dose, about one-tenth of Big Pharma’s price for COVID vaccines."
"CVD has similar licensing agreements with vaccine producers in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Botswana, and discussions are taking place with the World Health Organization (WHO) to share the vaccine globally. Hotez and Bottazzi won’t receive a penny from the arrangements, and Baylor College only gets a fee."
Corbevax will soon vaccinate more people globally than vaccine donations from the Biden administration, which has pledged 1.2 billion doses, and other G-7 countries. China, Russia, and Cuba are also making vaccines available globally.
"Bottazzi and Hotez make Corbevax through a microbial fermentation process, similar to the one which produces the recombinant Hepatitis B vaccine. Over the past ten years, their research familiarized them with coronavirus spike proteins, which contributed to the knowledge leading to this generation of COVID-19 vaccines."
"The open-source microbial fermentation process has been around for 40 years and is used widely in the Global South. Many scientists, labs, and vaccine makers worldwide are familiar with the process, and local production facilities can quickly reproduce it. Hospitals, clinics, and pop-up facilities can store Corbevax with simple refrigeration, making it ideal for transporting, storing, and deploying in many developing nations."
"Hotez said it was hard for CVD to gain recognition for their research at the beginning of the pandemic when the Trump administration showered so much attention and money on the big pharmaceutical firms and spewed out massive disinformation. He said the mRNA vaccines made by Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and others are great because of production speed but are not scalable for global vaccination."
"....Large swathes of the world are unvaccinated, creating “vaccine apartheid,” and new variants like Delta and Omicron emerge as a consequence. Without easily available and scalable global vaccination, new variants will continue to emerge, prolonging the pandemic and needlessly killing people."
“I harbor no ill will toward pharmaceutical companies,” said Hotez. “They do a lot of good with donating vaccines to Gavi, (Vaccine Alliance coordinated by the U.N.), or Covax, coordinated by the World Health Organization. But my premise is having that as your only model for making vaccines for the world, it doesn’t work.”
We fund the pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs and allow them to keep the patents. Economist Dean Baker recommends that patents be dispensed with. Companies would be paid to do R&D and it would end there. As for industrial secrets, he also recommends disallowing nondisclosure agreements. Extreme? Perhaps. But $1k/mo for insulin is pretty extreme. The fleecing of America by these entities needs to stop.
ReplyDeleteI admire Drs. Botazzi and Hotez for not seeking personal profit and being willing to share the formula for the vaccine for the greater good.
DeleteTell it, Stanley.
DeleteThe idea behind the Orphan Drug Act under Reagan was to encourage Free Enterprise to develop therapies for diseases that wouldn't otherwise get attention and to keep costs of these drugs affordable.
It worked great except that there was no oversight on the "affordable" part.
The vast majority of Americans with an MPN like mine are taking a generic leukemia drug developed in the 1970s and now mfctr'd in India that costs about $50 per month. That drug is associated with side effects such as miscarriage, birth defects, skin cancers, ulcers, and, over time, progression to fatal leukemia. It suppresses platelet proliferation by slowing production of all blood cells. That leads to compromised immunity and anemia.
In Europe, most patients take a better drug without these side effects that partially reverses the mutation at the root cause of the cancer, a drug manufactured ON OUR DIME under the ODA.
However, here, that drug costs $1,000 per month because insurance companies don't have the will or clout to negotiate a lower price like the Europeans.
Jean, stories like yours make me almost despair. The USA is the only developed country that allows this kind of price gouging. Have you checked Canadian pharmacies online for their prices? How pathetic is it that Americans with diabetes or other diseases with very expensive medications take « vacations « in Canada in order to be able to afford to fill their prescriptions.
DeleteI read an article recently on a médical website that said cardiologists are disturbed that many patients don’t fill prescriptions for the most effective heart failure medication out there - my husband takes it and it is VERY expensive - even with our PartD prescription plan . Only the very most expensive choice f plan covers this medication at all. But it pushes him into the doughnut hole by July even after he’s paid expensive co- pays.
I wanted to tell them - you idiots ! The reason your patients aren’t filling their prescriptions, and their heart disease continues to worsen, is because the drug is way too expensive. We can afford it but it bites even people like us - more comfortable in retirement than most.
There are too many people suffering unnecessary levels of seriousness in their disease because our profit- greed - based system doesn’t work. The free market should NOT be left unfettered when it comes to healthcare. It should be regulated by the government - Jim, I hope that you don’t have to learn some of these lessons the hard way, but will work to enlighten your conservative friends so that they also might push the political class to DO something.
Jean, I wish there were emojis on this site. I would put a "mad" and a "crying" one here. I'm sorry that we can't find the will to do better.
DeleteThere's more to this story, of course: American oncologists tend to prescribe the old drug because most patients cannot afford the new one. As a result, clinicians feel wary about the newer therapy, and the old one becomes their frontline standard-of-care drug.
DeleteThis means that patients who "outgrow" the efficacy of the older drug--which will happen if they live long enough--will have no alternative but a stem cell transplant at a cost of $300-$800,000.
SCT is a grueling procedure--two cousins with rare leukemias had it done--and many don't survive it. Medicare pays for it, probably because so few of us over 65 are good candidates. The cousin who had SCT in his 50s is still alive. The other, close to my age, died this summer.
The average Canadian pharmacy that welcomes drug vacationers doesn't stock the newer drug; you have to get it thru a research hospital where they train you how to handle it and give yourself the injections.
I am always appreciative if people are willing to write letters to their elected reps asking for reduced patent times and cost oversight of drugs, especially those developed on the public dime.
And, of course, researchers who develop new drugs and release the formulas for generic use are nothing short of living saints!
Jean, I will be happy to write a letter!. My cousin, an only "child", lost her dad (my mom's brother) to leukemia when she was 12, and he was about 42, in 1957 He died at the City of Hope in Los Angles. Fast forward to 2018. Her son was diagnosed with leukemia. After a long hunt that included all of the second cousins (including our sons) getting tested to see if they were a good match for a stem cell transplant, he finally got it, using his brother's cells, which were a half-match, the best they could do. But, a year later, at age 39, he too died of leukemia, at the City of Hope hospital. For some, it's a miracle, but it's definitely not a guaranteed miracle.
DeleteThank you for writing to your reps, Anne.
DeletePatients whose SCTs are successful often end up with a lot of other health problems from the juggernaut of meds they receive. Not a cakewalk.
It's not for me, but I do understand why younger people want to risk it.
I am sorry about your cousin's son. I feel very fortunate to have developed this later in life.
Thanks, Jean and Anne, for putting flesh on my generalities. In this country, an unfortuitous turn of health can mean financial ruin or not getting the treatment. Although regulation would help, I would look to more radical changes as I mentioned above. They won't happen with the existing parties. Pharmaceuticals aren't the only problem. The whole health system has gone rickety under the pressures of the business approach. My OR nurse friend says the majority of nursing staff has resigned. The arrogance of management has taken its toll.
DeleteStanley, yes, there are lots of healthcare access issues in the US that Raber and I could talk about ad nauseam from personal experience, but it makes others bored, tired, and cranky. I'm sure I try the patience and sympathy of all of you.
DeleteFixing the ODA, however, is something that ought to garner bipartisan support and would help a lot of folks with rare diseases.
Point of interest: Only one person in 450,000 has my particular type of cancer, but it is estimated that as many as one in ten Americans has some type of orphan (rare) disease. So the ODA potentially affects treatment for a lot of people.
Jean, That is educational. I'd never have guessed one in ten. Don't worry about mentioning healthcare access problems. It reminds me why I'm a democratic socialist.
DeleteI think figuring out ways to bring up healthcare access problems as a continuous stream of information is important. Too many Americans live in blissful ignorance. They are fortunate enough to be able to take access for granted, unaware of the challenges facing millions.
DeleteI became aware initially by trying to help a friend of one of my sons, who was in legal limbo, pending a judicial decision on his petition for permanent asylum. Long story. He eventually succeeded. But it opened my eyes to the problem. Then I spent 3 years writing grant application proposals for the volunteer health clinic started by one of my former parishes to help the working poor, caught in the gap between not poor enough for Medicaid, but with an income too low to be able to afford to buy health insurance.
Then there are insured people who simply can’t afford their medications.
In the richest country in the world.
FWIW - I think it's great news if this new treatment out of Texas is as effective and problem-free as the initial tests in India appear, and if it's affordable.
ReplyDeleteForgive me if I don't buy into the entire "People's World" spin.
Yes, Big Pharma is in it for profit. But profit doesn't exclude other motives. I am sure there are many employees of Big Pharma who do the work they do because they believe their company is making the world better by helping people who are sick and suffering.
I'm not inclined to slam the creators of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Not to put too fine a point on it: if we waited for this team in Texas, we'd be a year behind in vaccinating our country. The toll COVID in all its variations would have exacted on an unvaccinated population over the course of the past year is difficult to contemplate. From where I sit, it appears the profit-motivated entities performed a signal public service - to be sure, with significant help from the federal government. Why did the government choose to help Pfizer and Moderna rather than these Texas researchers? I don't know. I wasn't born yesterday - none of us were - so I have as clear an idea as most voters of how the influence game in Washington is played. Perhaps some journalists will tell us the story some day of how the government decided to pick "winners and losers" in this COVID war effort.
The profit motive - intermixed with other motives, like wanting to defeat this deadly disease - served the United States well in this instance. For a while, the US was at the forefront of getting the eligible population vaccinated with extremely effective vaccines. We should credit the private-public partnership for that achievement. That we subsequently slipped in our vaccination progress isn't the fault of Big Pharma - it's the fault of American cultural stupidity. That's something Big Pharma can't solve, and pretty clearly it's something the federal government can't solve.
I'm sure you are right that many employees of the pharmaceuticals are there because they believe in their mission and want to make a positive difference.
DeleteBut I think, as Dr. Hotez pointed out, that having only one model for producing vaccines doesn't work. We need all the tools that are available, including all the vaccines which are available, and whichever entities are producing them. One size doesn't fit all, or all situations and locations. I think part of the reason the mRNA vaccines were fast-forwarded is that the research and development had already been started and the basic model was already there. I'm certainly not going to complain, since we are triple vaxxed with the Moderna, and so far it has done the job.
Maybe PeoplesWorld is biased or over optimistic about CVD and Baylor's plan. I guess the proof is in the pudding, and we'll find out.
No argument from me about cultural stupidity.
Katherine - sure. The more vaccine options the better. I don't know of a reason that the Texas researchers can't go through the same FDA emergency-approval processes that Pfizer, Moderna and J&J did. Seems they've already done so for India. I guess they're more interested in addressing the need in underserved/undervaccinated nations rather than the US.
DeleteI actually think it's better that they focus on the underserved nations. We already have three vaccines, and there's enough for everyone if they wish to avail themselves. You can lead a horse to water....
DeleteThe homeless people I work with in my ministry have access to a national healthcare program: Medicaid. And I'm here to tell you: it sucks. Nobody with another option ever would choose it.
ReplyDeletePeople assume that a national health plan in the US is going to be Medicare For All. Forgive my cynicism, but I think it's much more likely to be Medicaid For All. Why would I think this? For one thing, because for better or worse, our solons in Congress will think that's all we can afford.
But more concretely, because of a germane precedent. About 12 years ago we embarked on a huge healthcare entitlement expansion, now called Obamacare - and what Obamacare turns out to be, once the dust has settled, is a large Medicaid eligibility expansion, with a few website gewgaws and gimcracks hung on the front of it.
Yes, Medicaid expansion is part of the ACA. Our governor fought it tooth and nail and was overridden by the legislature with a veto-proof majority. Believe me that is a rare occurrence. Of course our dear governor proceeded to slow walk it for two years. Of course you are right that Medicaid is crappy insurance. The only thing worse is not having any coverage. Which a lot of people didn't.
DeleteThe ACA is falling down on the "affordable" part, with high premiums and high deductibles. But it did help one group of people. That would be the self employed and those who work for a small employer who doesn't have a corporate Cadillac plan or at least a Chevy one. These would be the ones making too much for expanded Medicaid but too little to afford the full cost of the marketplace plans. They can get a subsidy for a decent marketplace plan. One of my sisters and one of my brothers, and their spouses, fall into that category. They are paying a fraction of what their pre-ACA plans cost, and have good coverage. Both have pre-existing conditions. Of course I am never going to hear my somewhat Trumpy brother admit that he has a good deal going.
The Obamacare "marketplace" approach, which I understand originally emanated, pre-Obama, from a conservative think tank, would be a way to conserve the private corporations and related processes, while unhitching health insurance from employment. A decade ago, I had thought a new generation of conservative leadership, unscarred by the battles over the passage of Obamacare, would be able to assess Obamacare on its merits and see that, compared to Medicare For All (i.e. a national health plan or "single payer"), Obamacare actually is more conservative - it literally conserves a good deal of what is currently in place.
DeleteBut then it turned out that the new generation of conservative leadership was Donald Trump ...
There was and is a lot to improve in Obamacare, and it seemed to me that that would be a great job for Republicans eager to address cost and access. However, the party preferred to expend its energy on killing it thru legislative initiatives and the courts.
DeleteA quick death didn't work, so my guess is that the new strategy is slow strangulation: Weaken the program by removing mandates and penalties, limit the number of people working during sign-up period to keep phone lines clogged, fiddle around with subsidy guidelines, maybe add the always-popular drug testing requirement, and generally make it worse so that everybody says to hell with it.
President Trump said that his alternative plan was going to be more economical, accessible, and comprehensive, but if he released any details, I missed them.
Maybe he will provide more info when he is re-elected in 2024.
Strategy? Plan? From Trump Republicans? Their only strategy is to "win" the next news cycle (on Fox News and even-farther-right networks).
DeleteAs I recall, Obamacare was patterned on the healthcare plan that Romney put through in Mass. when he was Governor. Got it passed, working with a Dem majority in their legislature. But once it was a Democrat proposing much the same thing, the Republicans screamed bloody murder.
DeleteI know very little about Obamacare, how it works in the real world. But one thing I know for sure - it probably cut the numbers of Americans who had no health insurance at all (no medicaid or medicare either) by 50% - millions of people now have at least some insurance who formerly had no insurance - the working poor whom I have mentioned before..
Since you read mostly conservative sources, Jim, maybe a different view would be good. This is from a progressive policy think tank - an assessment of the positives of Obamacare.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/10-ways-aca-improved-health-care-past-decade/
And this
A look at how the US stacks up internationally in expenditures/person.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/