[gnicholas]

According to NPR [1]

> Moderna spokesperson Colleen Hussey explained to NPR in an email that its vaccine doesn't need to be kept so cold because of its particular "lipid nanoparticle properties and structure," and because the company has learned from experience — it's developed ten mRNA vaccine candidates already. "Now we don't need [ultra-cold conditions] as the quality of product has improved and [it] doesn't need to be highly frozen to avoid mRNA degradation," Hussey explained.

and

> It's possible that Pfizer's vaccine could eventually be shown to be stable in somewhat warmer conditions — or for longer times out of the freezer.

1: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/17/9355633...

[kart23]

Read in between the lines for a moment.

They're saying that the differences are secret, and they're not gonna release the specific structure of the LNPs and why the differences are there. The equivalent of having two proprietary binaries that both accomplish the same task, but have different code, and the reasons why are secret as well.

And we're accepting this on the first mRNA vaccine ever to be used on a massive scale, all to protect their profits before the rest of the world can start producing vaccines. Yes they spent a lot of money and time creating the vaccine. Now open source it and let the rest of the world save their citizens.

[Siira]

> Yes they spent a lot of money and time creating the vaccine. Now open source it and let the rest of the world save their citizens.

And who’s going to pay for it? The whole PPE shortage was exactly because of this entitled attitude. If you artificially limit prices, you’ll only limit the supply (to possibly nothing, as vaccines have high upfront costs), and enable scalpers.

One obvious solution is to have a UN initiative that buys the IP and opensources it. I don’t know how hard this is. Generally, one big problem is the lack of gratitude on the part of freeriders. Otherwise, the goodwill it generated for the sponsors would probably be enough to make it happen.

PS: I live in Iran. I am not defending my privilege here.

[kart23]

Ideally, they would realize that moral responsibility to save lives is greater than money in this case. I don't think money would even be a problem, public pressure would be enough if everyone knew what was at stake. The companies capable of manufacturing would still make money by selling the vaccine to governments and people.

[em500]

Probably every doctor and nurse feels moral responsibility to save lives is greater than money in any specific case. But if you cut all their compensation to minimum wage plus a bit, I doubt many will keep working in health care for very long.

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

It doesn't matter now because that's not some ingredient you can bolt on. It was part of the initial design process.

Sure, they could have shared all their secrets, and BioNTech theirs. Then, they would have come up with the same vaccine candidate and run two identical trials. Which would've been quite useless and far more risky.

[mensetmanusman]

Nation states have responded to this ambiguity by directing well financed hacker groups to steal this information.

Their ethics say the ends justify the means.

[Siira]

I doubt they even think about the ethics. It’s not like they weren’t doing nefarious cyber activities before Covid-19.

[brobdingnagians]

Those LNPs have historically caused adverse reactions, per their 2018 SEC filing, hopefully their upgraded versions are improved and do not cause those reactions; I am hopeful.that they have, because of the reported results of their current clinical trials, but it is a data point:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000119312518...

"Most of our investigational medicines are formulated and administered in an LNP which may lead to systemic side effects related to the components of the LNP which may not have ever been tested in humans. While we have continued to optimize our LNPs, there can be no assurance that our LNPs will not have undesired effects. Our LNPs could contribute, in whole or in part, to one or more of the following: immune reactions, infusion reactions, complement reactions, opsonation reactions, antibody reactions including IgA, IgM, IgE or IgG or some combination thereof, or reactions to the PEG from some lipids or PEG otherwise associated with the LNP. Certain aspects of our investigational medicines may induce immune reactions from either the mRNA or the lipid as well as adverse reactions within liver pathways or degradation of the mRNA or the LNP, any of which could lead to significant adverse events in one or more of our clinical trials. Many of these types of side effects have been seen for legacy LNPs. There may be resulting uncertainty as to the underlying cause of any such adverse event, which would make it difficult to accurately predict side effects in future clinical trials and would result in significant delays in our programs"

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

> "have historically"

vs.

"may lead" / "may not have", "can be no assurance that [they] will not" / "could contribute" / etc.

This virus seems to have the unique ability to cause cognitive impairments at a distance.

[formercoder]

Good to be cautious but there’s a lot of CYA in those SEC risk disclosures.

[ehsankia]

Are they saying it's possible the existing BioNtech vaccine will be stable at lower temps or that they could make it with the alternative lipid?

The latter would require another phase2/phase3 trial I assume, and you'd think they would've tested the former by now thoroughly.

[gnicholas]

My reading of the article is that they are testing to see whether the current formulation is not as temperature-sensitive as currently believed.