How do you make a 250x better vaccine at 1/10 the cost? Develop it in India.

My cached answer would be, that there too little trust in the research not being fraudulent. The Chinese were more serious in the last decade about fighting fraud and corruption.

In this case, the fact that you don't link a peer-reviewed paper but a blog post to speak about the effectiveness of the vaccine is a tell.

[-]Abhishaike Mahajan7mo10

That's fair! I agree that a paper would be better. The counterpoint to that point is that plenty of bio startups don't prioritize peer-reviewed papers given the time investment, and that the NIH clearly finds their data trustworthy enough to fund and conduct a phase 1 trial using their vaccine.

[-]ChristianKl7mo10

They seem to insist on the phase 1 trial happening in the US conducted by NIH and not by the company, which is a sign that they don't trust them to honestly report the results if they would do the phase 1 trial in India. Phase 1 trials are relatively cheap. >90% of phase 1 trials don't lead to a licensed drug and that's okay.

Current flu vaccines use inactivated viruses, which means that there are a lot of different antibodies that are targeted by the immune system. That makes it different from mRNA vaccines that are more targeted on specific antibodies. It's not at all clear that comparing antibody titers tells you that the mRNA vaccine is 250x better at what you care about.

From a global health perspective, trying to support Indian biotech to get off the ground and help with vaccine development has value.

It's also worth noting that the fact that the NIH was funding this vaccine development under the Biden administration, does not mean that it will actually run the trial under RFK Jr's watch.

[-]Abhishaike Mahajan7mo10

Sure! Agree with that all that, including in the 250x value is very much a Youtube-optimized headline than what the episode is actually about. They also obviously study clearance antibodies as well, alongside other measures of efficacy.

Past that, many people in the vaccine world are quite optimistic on Soham’s approach. There is indeed a trust problem in India, but smart people there are deeply aware of it and are trying to combat it.

[-]ChristianKl7mo-2-4

Writing misleading headlines is how you destroy trust.

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4 How do you make a 250x better vaccine at 1/10 the cost? Develop it in India.

by Abhishaike Mahajan

9th Feb 2025

1 min read

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This is a linkpost for https://www.owlposting.com/p/how-do-you-make-a-250x-better-vaccine

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How do you make a 250x better vaccine at 1/10 the cost? Develop it in India.

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[-]ChristianKl7mo8-2

Yet, the Indian biotech research scene is nearly nonexistent. Why is that?

My cached answer would be, that there too little trust in the research not being fraudulent. The Chinese were more serious in the last decade about fighting fraud and corruption.

In this case, the fact that you don't link a peer-reviewed paper but a blog post to speak about the effectiveness of the vaccine is a tell.

[-]Abhishaike Mahajan7mo10

[-]ChristianKl7mo10

From a global health perspective, trying to support Indian biotech to get off the ground and help with vaccine development has value.

It's also worth noting that the fact that the NIH was funding this vaccine development under the Biden administration, does not mean that it will actually run the trial under RFK Jr's watch.

[-]Abhishaike Mahajan7mo10

[-]ChristianKl7mo-2-4

Writing misleading headlines is how you destroy trust.

Moderation Log