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A thread on the Oxford/AZ vaccine, university/industry collaboration and responsible innovation. #OxfordVaccine
The world was betting big on this one ( @TheEconomist) 1/n
The world was betting big on this one ( @TheEconomist) 1/n
It’s annoying when science is tagged by university - "an Oxford university study shows X" - as though the university gives its stamp of approval to the results of particular employees. However, when it comes to innovation, institutions really matter 2/n
This is not just about who does science best - public or private sector. It’s also about the direction and potential beneficiaries of science. 3/n
For all of the charity-washing (neglected diseases, orphan drugs, patent pools etc) pharma research follows the money. Erectile dysfunction pays; malaria doesn't. And government funding can reinforce rather than counterbalance this. 4/n https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/mar/16/who-benefits-from-biomedical-science
Vaccines are a great opportunity to change the story - collective benefit, low price. Well done to @AstraZeneca for getting this and for Oxford for making them stick to it. AZ has agreed to sell it at cost to developing countries. 5/n
The incentives for technonationalism were vast - British drugs for British people. But Oxford were clear from the start that distribution in poor countries was part of the deal https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2020/astrazeneca-and-oxford-university-announce-landmark-agreement-for-covid-19-vaccine.html. 6/n
There are few reasons to be proud of the British response to covid. But this makes my cautiously gleeful. It could be like Jonas Salk, but without the myth-making... 7/n
