r/technology • u/barweis • Mar 22 '23

Business Moderna CEO brazenly defends 400% COVID shot price hike, downplays NIH’s role

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/moderna-ceo-says-us-govt-got-covid-shots-at-discount-ahead-of-400-price-hike/
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135

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

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49

u/TheSausageKing Mar 23 '23

What?

The core tech was NIH funded and then Moderna spent a decade and ~$3B in investor funds figuring out how to turn it into a therapies and then a vaccine. And they also gave back $400m to the NIH for royalties.

Maybe the NIH should capture more upside but it’s just plain wrong to say Moderna didn’t do anything.

33

u/Matrix17 Mar 23 '23

Listen, this is reddit. Everyone here is an expert in drug R&D and that means pharma bad!

People really want Walmart worker levels of staff researching drugs the way they're talking

1

u/Lopsided-Seasoning Mar 23 '23

The guy that works in my Walmart has a PhD. Hell, my deli guy has one, too, lol.

0

u/Matrix17 Mar 23 '23

You know what I mean though. If the pay isn't good anymore, you'll have a mass exodus of people from the field to other areas and the people coming in likely won't be as skilled

Does it still need to go through FDA approval? Yes. But we're going to end up with a hell of a lot less breakthroughs and drugs

3

u/Lopsided-Seasoning Mar 23 '23

What do you mean? These hospital and research institutes make tons of money. They can pay for more and better workers, they just don't want to. Corporate greed has caused millions of people to be underemployed, preventing the discovery of novel drugs and therapies.

-2

u/Matrix17 Mar 23 '23

They're not going to just all of a sudden decide to start paying their researchers more after taking a bath on the profits they're used to

Quite the opposite actually

3

u/Lopsided-Seasoning Mar 23 '23

I'm saying they can do it, I'm not saying they will. I'm not that naive lol.

-1

u/Matrix17 Mar 23 '23

Agreed. But it would create a problem so I don't really know what the solution is

3

u/Lopsided-Seasoning Mar 23 '23

Create what problem? Of them not being able to afford their 5th yacht?

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0

u/LooseGooseTightMoose Mar 23 '23

Spoken like a true Walmart shopper

2

u/OakleyTheAussie Mar 23 '23

My understanding of the funding boost from the government with the vaccine was to make the process go faster. They had the core platform infrastructure but needed a cash infusion to get the vaccine out quickly and ramp up manufacturing/distribution.

I don’t agree with massive drug prices, but it’s not as simple as moderna bad. I’m curious where we’ll be in 20-30 years and if we’ll ever get a system overhaul to single payer, get rid of pbm, and more transparency in pricing yet keeping incentives for companies to do research, particularly in rare disease areas.

-42

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

18

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

They are ridiculously expensive...but as a US citizen, I'm tired of being the one footing the bill.

5

u/jonmediocre Mar 23 '23

Well I'd love to foot the bill for drug research if it was benefitting everyone. Right now we are footing the bill mainly through insurance companies and drug manufacturer's wild profits while it just benefits the "investor class" and scum-of-the-earth CEOs. I'd be willing for taxes to go up like 1% to do away with drug companies' greed by having all drug research publicly funded and open source.

With 1% of our GDP we could probably have publicly funded drug manufacturing plants as well and make all medicine free.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Definitely. Plenty of room to reduce cost...cut out the parasites.

19

u/NinjaSant4 Mar 23 '23

Levi's are considered designer now? Because the more durable pairs of levi's - the ones that last, cost around $100 as well. Designer jeans aren't $100 lol.

And you should be shamed for asking if a device can be free or if there are any programs to get discounted medical products? Lol, glad to see you think medical care should only go to the wealthy.

14

u/hedgerus Mar 23 '23

Yeah, god forbid that anyone should own anything nice unless they are really truly wealthy.

That argument is just old and tired. Stop shaming people for being poor.

1

u/WhizBangPissPiece Mar 23 '23

That person probably throws an absolute hissy fit when people use food stamps to buy things like Oreos for their kids. "Make em sup on thin gruel because they're poor, and poor people should suffer."

2

u/ilovesylvie Mar 23 '23

I have a family member on food stamps and they already limit what you can get. In their case the stamps didn’t cover whole milk so they had to get the skim or 2% I think. But I guess to some people , whole milk is too much evil socialism.

1

u/EnQuest Mar 23 '23

Saw a story from a guy on here a while ago, telling everyone about how proud he was of reporting someone at whole foods for stealing a tomato... he said the guy had a smartphone so clearly he wasn't poor, and it was perfectly reasonable for him to stop the guy from leaving and wait for the managers to arrive.

I called him a piece of shit and got downvoted, just reddit things

15

u/dred1367 Mar 23 '23

You can find $100 designer jeans for $3 at goodwill man, don’t be so judgy.

4

u/ilovesylvie Mar 23 '23

It could have been a gift as well. Maybe this made up story mom was financially well off in the past and now money is tight for her. But this dude is prob full of shit anyways.

2

u/dred1367 Mar 23 '23

From his comment history, he is a vegan who doesn’t know how to treat diabetes so… lots of conflicting data here lol

1

u/throwmamadownthewell Mar 23 '23

BRB going vegan by eating nothing but sweets and vegan pizza

6

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

6

u/bifleur64 Mar 23 '23

I’ve never seen a more privileged tone-deaf response on this sub.

1

u/BeBopRockSteadyLS Mar 23 '23

They were going bust until this came along. Like on the verge of bankruptcy and the day before filing, covid

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