Just because they hold the patent doesn't mean they won't license it out. We're talking about the entire world here.

I know a lot of people, Americans in particular, are weary of 'big pharma' and for-profit healthcare. And Americans have good reason for that mistrust. But this isn't just an American issue.

Other governments such as the EU and India will force their hand if needed for the public good. As they've done countless times in the past. We just need to get this developed and manufactured as fast as possible.

And the linked article said the clash was between this pharmaceutical behemoth or a startup from the university. I'll take the behemoth now.

"The scientists’ small biotech company—a spinout partially funded by Oxford—was refusing to hand over intellectual-property rights. To outflank their bosses, the scientists asked a London investment banker to help explore other potential deals."

The patent protects from somebody simply copying the formula. Which is many orders of magnitude cheaper than doing research and development, especially on human subjects.

Why does that matter if the research and development costs were publicly funded?

Trials and regulatory approvals are a huge cost too.

If the government paid for all of that (including opportunity costs + a decent margin), then the government should have asked for the patent rights (or at least a commitment on pricing).

Has any serious journalist looked into exactly what the world governments paid for and exactly what the deals with the drug companies look like?

All I can find are biased opinion pieces devoid of actual information.

The FT had some coverage of this, but it wasn't massively in depth. The one thing I remember is that the AZ would be sold without profit until the end of the pandemic, which was contractually defined as June 2021.

Incidentally, if you want serious journalism, the FT is worth paying for.

Because they can and it will make them a ton of money.

The laws need to change.

But, for instance - public money is used to build roads, yet companies that build them make money in the process. There is no state-owned road building company. What's the difference here?

Public money pays for the roads. After the road is built, the road belongs to the public. Public money pays for the research. After the research finishes, the results should belong to the public, the same way as the road does.

The public can of course sell (i), charge (ii) or monetize in any other way.

(i) e.g. privatization of telephone networks

(ii) e.g. toll roads and bridges

That’s a faulty parallel. The road belongs to the public, while only the building is tendered to a private (in a presumably competitive market) to maximize quality and price ratio.

In this case the building is publicly funded for a profit AND the final result donated in “perpetuity” to make it a private TOLL road.

Double dip?

(I’m ok with subsidizing the research, and even negotiating a bulk manufacturing contract with an agreed margin... but a patent? Isn’t that bending too far?)

My village has their own road building and repairing department--mostly used for repairing. It's called the department of public works. We have our own utility company too. Both of those end up being cheaper than the having private companies do it.

You don't die if you can't afford to drive on the road. That's the difference.

But most places(at least around the EU) have already announced that the vaccine will be free - so there is no question about affordability?

The taxes still paid for it twice

In what way? Yes, the taxes paid for research, then taxes paid to purchase the product. But if everything was state owned top to bottom, the taxes would have had to fund research, then manufacturing, production and distribution. I wager the amount of money spent would have been exactly the same, so it's more like an accounting trick than an actual difference.

Its not about manufacturing costs. The companies continue to own the patents and after some period of time have every plan to start charging for use of it. This means they can get rich for decades off of the taxpayer-funded research. Meanwhile the governments have agreed to take on the risk by buying tens of millions of doses before they vaccines are even approved which means some of them will likely be waste due to either not getting approval or coming after more effective drugs.

Socialized risk and privatized profits. A capitalist's dream.

To go back to your highway analogy, its as if the government contracted for the entire interstate highway system to be built and then let various private companies charge a perpetual toll to use the roads in addition to the money they made for building it.

Its not an accounting trick, its a perpetual royalty on the taxpayer's expense if the drug works (and a profit even if their drug never passes Phase 3 clinical trials).

> If the research has been already paid out