Do not underestimate the power of human creativity and antreprenorial spirit when correctly motivated. The ability to sell this vaccine at obscene profits would've been extremely motivating.
Now I am not in pharma I don't know how exactly the extra money would've helped, but I know that in pretty much any business more money help with new hires and better people, new machines for production lines, more wild ideas being tested and discarded if not working. Also this is a supply chain issue and they would've been strongly incentivised by more profits. Even those damn syringes missing in Japan and little container bottles to store vaccines in. Finally at macro level better profits would've attracted and incentivised more entrepreneurs with more ideas and imagination. Remember, the very existence of the Moderna and BioNTech companies is due to the free market and private enterprise.
Now on the more very short term an expensive vaccine would've reduce demand by making people consider alternatives and by making sure only people that really need it would get it. It would've avoided aberrations like vaccinating terminal patients or people who are not active and can very well wait for the price to come down wearing masks in the meantime.
But I am afraid that the supply constraint for the vaccine is long term. Because the virus is changing. And our incentives are more aligned with prolonged lockdowns than vaccine production.
I think this is where we disagree. If wealth was equally distributed I would agree but wealth follows a power law distribution. People with a 1000x less money than me but with 100x more risk should get the vaccine before me.
Do you know of the mythical man month problem? It seems to apply here.
> People with a 1000x less money than me but with 100x more risk should get the vaccine before me.
And this is how you get shortages. Because there are a lot of people considering themselves at 100x risk (high demand) and very few people interested in serving them for no profit (low supply). The market laws are simple and implacable.
This is our current strategy and I consider it disastrous. But you should be pretty happy with it then. The current vaccination is run exactly according to your priorities, so kudos!
Again, I know too little about producing vaccines to know if this is a MMM situation, but based on my expertise in other fields, I highly doubt it.
Now I am not in pharma I don't know how exactly the extra money would've helped, but I know that in pretty much any business more money help with new hires and better people, new machines for production lines, more wild ideas being tested and discarded if not working. Also this is a supply chain issue and they would've been strongly incentivised by more profits. Even those damn syringes missing in Japan and little container bottles to store vaccines in. Finally at macro level better profits would've attracted and incentivised more entrepreneurs with more ideas and imagination. Remember, the very existence of the Moderna and BioNTech companies is due to the free market and private enterprise.
Now on the more very short term an expensive vaccine would've reduce demand by making people consider alternatives and by making sure only people that really need it would get it. It would've avoided aberrations like vaccinating terminal patients or people who are not active and can very well wait for the price to come down wearing masks in the meantime.
But I am afraid that the supply constraint for the vaccine is long term. Because the virus is changing. And our incentives are more aligned with prolonged lockdowns than vaccine production.