The development of the corona virus vaccine has yielded some scientists around the world very handsome profits (many billions), but there is a new vaccine in the picture and its developers do not want even a penny in return. “We’re not trying to make money. We just want people to get vaccinated,” said Dr. Peter Hotz of the Center for Vaccine Development at the Children’s Hospital in Texas.
The corona vaccine developed by Hotz together with his colleague and research partner for years – Dr. Maria Elena Butatsi, received an emergency permit a few days ago by the Government of India. The vaccine is manufactured by a company called Biological E. Texas has two co-developers, a second-generation vaccine against Covid-19 and the company has ambitious plans to produce more than a billion vaccine doses by 2022. Hotz and Butatzi themselves will not receive any profits, but their employer – Baylor College – will be paid for it. The franchise.
Unlike Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the Hotze and Butaci vaccine called Corbevax does not have a commercial patent, and aims to serve as a cheap and available alternative to all expensive mRNA vaccines for developing countries that still lack a sufficient supply of vaccines to vaccinate the entire population. As mentioned, the first country to start vaccinating its citizens with the Corbevax vaccine is India, but Hotz and Butaci are already in contact with other manufacturers around the world and have also approached the World Health Organization to help them spread the vaccine they have developed in other countries around the world.
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If all goes according to plan, more manufacturers around the globe will be able to start producing the vaccine themselves, developed in Texas, based on an older technology of recombinant protein (the same technology on which the hepatitis B vaccine is based, for example). This is a technology that many manufacturers of drugs and vaccines already know well, unlike mRNA technology which is relatively new and more complicated.
Social organizations around the world have already praised the generous move by vaccine developers and the Texas Children’s Hospital under the joint sponsorship of the vaccine, saying they hope the way they work will serve as a model for how vaccines should be developed and shared globally during a global epidemic.
“If they can, why can Modern and Pfizer not?”
“The Texas Children’s Hospital’s commitment to sharing the technology it has developed challenges the pharma giants and the erroneous narrative that dictates that the development of vaccines and medical innovations thrives only under a cloak of secrecy and exclusivity. If they can do that – why should Pfizer and Modern not do the same?” , Director of the Public Citizen lobbyist group, to the Washington Post.
Hotz and Butatzi were able to develop their vaccine even without much help from the US government, compared to the $ 4.1 billion investment the US government made in developing the modern vaccine alone. The Corbevax vaccine was developed with only $ 7 million, mostly from private investors. For that matter, vodka maker Tito’s Vodka was a local business from Austin Texas, which was one of the first to invest in the vaccine venture with a $ 1 million donation given to researchers in May 2020. ” We did not have to discuss Omicron at all, “Hotz said.
Corona vaccine (Photo: Olivier Fitoussi, Flash 90)It is difficult to predict how the new vaccine will affect the disease state. Increasing the production rate of any vaccine, even one based on well-known technology, can be a daunting challenge. As for clinical information on the effectiveness of the vaccine – it has not been tested at all against the omicron variant that has spread in recent weeks around the world and is becoming the dominant strain of the corona virus. So experts are following this project with skepticism.
The company that is expected to produce the vaccine in India – Biological Island. It said it had completed two Phase 3 clinical trials involving more than 3,000 trials from across India. In one of them, the vaccine was found to be 80 percent effective in preventing symptomatic disease, but the full data have not yet been published by the company. And this fact leads to quite a bit of criticism.
Not tested against omicron
Joseph Osmundson, a virologist at New York University, is one of the critics concerned about the lack of public data about the third phase of the clinical trial of the Corbevax vaccine. “These are health services for poor countries that we were never willing to accept,” he said. Hotz accepted the criticism of his colleagues with understanding, but came out in defense of the Biological Company. Saying that this is a company of a much smaller size than the other pharma giants and that its resources are more limited. “They assured me that they are working hard to bring the full data to publication as soon as possible. It should be remembered that this is a small company, not an international corporation,” Hotz said.
As of today to Biological’El. There are already 150 million vaccine doses ready, Hotz claims, and the Indian government has already placed an order for 300 million vaccine doses. The goal is to increase the production rate to 100 million servings per month. Only 40 percent of India’s population – eight 1.38 billion people – are fully vaccinated against the corona virus.
Corona vaccine (Photo: Jonathan Zindel, Flash 90)Officials at the company declined to comment on the cost of a vaccine dose, but the Indian media estimated that it may be a particularly low cost of about $ 2.5 per dose. If this is true, it is one of the cheapest vaccines in the world against corona. By comparison, Modern and Pfizer vaccine doses can sometimes cost ten times as much.
A bite to Biden
Hotz and his partner Butatzi hope India is just the beginning, and there are talks to start production of their vaccine in other poor countries as well like Indonesia, Bangladesh and Botswana. In addition, they are also in contact with the World Health Organization to share their vaccine license in the organization’s open database set up to deal with the corona plague.
Joe Biden (Photo: Reuters)Hotz did not pass up the opportunity to send a sting to US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders who said they were making efforts to close the vaccine gap in third world countries. Below the Sahara, close to a billion more in Latin America and the Caribbean and another about a billion in the smaller countries of Southeast Asia. That brings us to three billion unvaccinated. “
“We need six to nine billion vaccine doses. So you know … When the President of the United States stood up a few weeks ago and announced that the U.S. government is the largest donor of vaccines with 275 million vaccine doses, I look at that number and think to myself: this Not something that justifies bragging, “Hotz said.
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