The trouble with a Nobel for mRNA COVID vaccines

• The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was recently awarded to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman.
• They won the award for developing the mRNA vaccine technology that became the foundation for history’s fastest vaccine development programme during the COVID19 pandemic.

mRNA Vaccines

• Such vaccines make use of the messenger RNA molecules that tell the body’s cells what proteins to build.
• Here, the mRNA is coded to tell the cells to recreate the spike protein of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19.
• A coronavirus vaccine based on mRNA, once injected into the body, will instruct the body’s cells to create copies of the spike protein.
• In turn, this is expected to prompt the immune cells to create antibodies to fight it.
• These antibodies will remain in the blood and fight the real virus if and when it infects the human body.

Nobel Prize 2023

• It acknowledges work that has created benefits “for all mankind”.
• However, if we had to be stricter about holding scientific accomplishments up to this standard, the subset of mRNA vaccines used during the COVID-19 pandemic may not meet it.
• Yet, they deserved to win the prize for their scientific accomplishments.
• Instead, their triumph tells us what “for all mankind” should really mean.

At the expense of public funds

• A significant portion of the foundational research behind the development of new drugs and vaccines is conducted using government funding.
  • It involves the identification of potential biomolecular targets within the body that could be targeted by a drug to treat a specific disease.
  • This is followed by the search for suitable chemical candidates.
• The estimated cost and time for this phase are $1 billion to $2.5 billion and several decades respectively.
• Companies subsequently commoditise and commercialise these entities, raking in millions in profits.
  • This is typically at the expense of the same people whose taxes funded the fundamental research.
• The current drug and vaccine development model encourages innovation and the resulting competition helps reduce prices.
• However, one cannot deny the ‘double-spend’ it imposes on consumers including governments.
• Additionally, it also encourages a profit-driven mindset among the companies involved in the development and production of these products.

Moderna and Pfizer Vaccines

• After Moderna and Pfizer began producing their mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, they were mired in North American and European countries’ determination to make sure they had ample for themselves.
• Their use in other countries (including India) was also complicated by protracted negotiations over pricing and liability.

On COVAX

• COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.
• It was launched in April 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission and France in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• It is an effort to ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to Covid-19 vaccines once they are available, regardless of their wealth.
• However, this programme fell far short of its targets.
• India, Russia, and China exported billions of doses of their vaccines, but their efforts were beset by concerns.
• It included concerns like overestimated manufacturing capacity (in India’s case) and quality (in Russia’s and China’s case).
• There were reports of several countries in Africa having to throw away lakhs of vaccine doses because they had been exported too close to their expiry dates.

On Corbevax

• A counterexample to the path that Dr. Kariko followed is Corbevax.
• Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and the Texas Children’s Hospital Centre for Vaccine Development developed this protein subunit vaccine.
• They licensed it to India’s Biological E for manufacturing but did not patent it.
• It helped in the development and distribution of a low cost COVID19 vaccine to people of the world without patent limitation.

Conclusion

• We cannot blame our scientists for trying to profit from their work.
• The mRNA vaccine could have benefited everyone during the pandemic, but it did not.
• So, history should remember what actually happened during the pandemic and what the 2023 Medicine Nobel claims happened differently.