Economic recession and geo political tensions not to mention the small matter of a looming election. Steve clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u. S. Politics and society on aljazeera. Is counting the cost on aljazeera a look at the world of business of economics this week as rich nations cornered the market for covert 19. 00 vaccines and treatments what does that mean for the worlds poor we find out about the real cost of developing drugs. Im joined now in scotland East Kilbride where the Worlds Largest trial of possible coded 19 treatments has produced results that are already being used to save lives. And a hack possibly by teens that took twitter by surprise we talked to the c. E. O. Of a Silicon Valley company that does away with the need to remember possible. The race to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus pandemic is entering a crucial stage with large scale trials on the way the debates of opaque pricing has raised concerns that pharmaceutical companies could be charging way too much for covert 900. 00 treatments the latest out of disquiet was triggered by gilly ads rendez appear at americas decision to monopolize supply. Reports. The u. S. Government has cornered almost the entire Global Market of rum desert here for the next several months the drug has been found to shorten hospital stays for covert 1000 patients this america 1st policy during the pandemic has led to expressions of outrage and dismay among some International Leaders but us coronavirus patients may not receive the drug if they dont have enough cash the drug manufacturer glared says governments in the developed world will pay 3 190. 00 for a vial of rendez of their average treatment will come to 2340. 00 a patient however each vial for the Us Private Health Insurance system is 520. 00 or an average cost of 3120. 00 a patient its not clear how much each patient will have to pay either out of pocket or higher premiums as with many drugs that are eventually sold for profit by pharmaceutical companies from doesnt it was initially developed with taxpayer money at least 60000000. 00 but watchdog groups suspect government costs are far higher and the taxpayers are being charged twice for the drug 1st for its development and then for its purchase a report released this week found that pharmaceutical companies have raised the prices on 245. 00 different drugs since the 1st case of covert 1000. 00 was reported in the u. S. In january and many of those drugs are used to treat covert 19 or used in intensive care units but some economists wonder whether amid covert 19 economic collapse mass unemployment the inability of millions to pay their rent and social unrest things may be changing i had never seen the American Economy i was born here ive never seen the American Economy to worship the level the accumulation of dead ends of crises for which i see no solution is overwhelming and i think this system is shaking whether it will disappear. I dont know but if you say to me it is the 1st time in your life that you would imagine that its possible the answer is yes the perception of price gouging by pharmaceutical companies during a pandemic may become part of a wider reckoning for the us she never turns the outages 0 washington. Gilliard says that because its drug reduces the time that covert 19 patients spend in hospital its priced fairly senator Bernie Sanders claim that run does appear cost gilliatt 10. 00 a vial to manufacture and as you heard taxpayers are paid 70000000. 00 towards the cost of development of thats crucial as Many Americans dont have or have lost their Health Insurance and cant afford to pay for the drug the problem is giving out has made the same claim before it bought the start up behind a ready ready to market hepatitis c. Drug for 11000000000. 00 and began to market the drug for 84000. 00 allowing its almost recoup the cost of acquisition in the 1st year according to bloomberg so how much does big pharma spend on developing drugs will on average 2600000000. 00 according to Tufts University but Advocacy Group Public Citizen believes the cost is closer to 1400000000. 00 as governments spend billions securing supplies of potential covert 19 vaccines pfizer is charging roughly 20. 00 for a dose which the Company Claims is 30 percent less than what other drug makers charge for a seasonal flu jab. And because it isnt receiving government money for research and development it can expect to make more than 15000000000. 00 in revenue now before we say further the pricing of drugs and how to get a more equitable allocation we have 2 more reports for you in a moment Elizabeth Brown and takes a look at indias use of blood plasma in the treatment of coronavirus patients but 1st joe to help on a cheap 60 year old steroids that has proved to be a life saving treatment. This is the intensive care unit. This is a 10 bed intensity and where we had all our covert patients with envy at the height of the pandemic the place would be in fill of medical staff not the staff as your therapist the coded 1000 pandemic in the u. K. May have subsided for now but its accelerating in many parts of the world so the search for treatments alongside a vaccine remains as urgent as ever and the drug trial has revealed the steroid dexamethasone to be effective in reducing deaths by up to a 3rd a lot of patients and he commented intensive care unit they have a hyper immune response so the system goes into overdrive because if the hyper immune spawns actually causes a lot of the illness the damage to the lungs so decks a mess one hopes it is going to dampen all day 56 year old eddie hughes believes decks a method saved his life of what it was a functioning since machines would be easily run faster seem to keep me alive in a way from flying with. Little to nothing else is what if not an to lose lets try it after you have to fix me. Dont get started to stay dont stop to take at least. For the 1st time it was the end of started to be talk of what you want for the team to return and that was just we just couldnt even believe that any was given decks of methadone here at hairmyres hospital it scotland one of a large number taking part in the u. K. Wide randomised drug trial being run by scientists at Oxford University the aim to test a number of widely available off the shelf drugs with the hope of finding one or a combination that might work to ease some of the worst symptoms of covert 98 hughes return from the brink of death contributed to data that has seen dexamethasone approved as a breakthrough treatment for some of the worst cases of covered 19 States Methicillin has been. And. There. Can be scraped up and been able to be. The recovery trial has also been successful in ruling out the malaria drug hydroxy chloroquine once hailed as a game changer by President Donald Trump but found instead to be useless in treating covert 19 as the world waits for a safe and effective vaccine that may yet be a long way off recovery continues to look for treatments that will help us live with the virus possibly for years to come join a whole aljazeera scotland. These Police Officers the new delhi a donating blood plasma they are just some of the 2500 police staff in the indian capital who recovered from corona virus but Health Minister Harsh Vardhan says few people have been willing to donate and has launched a campaign as the number of infections rise so magic is subway to go get a. Big driver and greet everyone especially dog who have recovered from government weight is this really inspired people to donate their plasma in large numbers. Plasma therapy is treat and provide a virus patients around the world plasma from a former patients blood a separated from a transfusion to an infected person plasma of recovered patients contains antibodies which can fight the virus but what is the problem with them but the base con is the 1st person in delhi to have donated his plasma after recovering from the corona virus and april hes planning to donate for a 7th time. It feels really good to donate plasma i feel like im saving the life of someone. That im helping their family returning happiness to their family so. Were sort of trials to determine its effectiveness are continuing but doctors say the results so far are encouraging it clear. For using oxygen at the state of this point 0 actually blood was the streets of course it does. It really Centers Across the world have saw what. It can force and. So by virtue of what we look at will exist its. Delis State Government as one of many around the country to set up Plasma Donation Centers to make it easier for patients needing the therapy. Struggling to find the recovered i plead with you in life you get very few opportunities to save someones life this is your opportunity to. Provide a virus is connected to the deaths of around 30000 indians with more than 1200000 infections. Campaign the state. Transport for those. To Infections Health officials. Sick to help patients and. Counting the cost. Lets put some of those issues to dr Manuel Martin who joins us from geneva skype to talk to the innovation and access policy advisor. Or Doctors Without Borders good to have you with us well how can Drug Companies offset the cost of their research and offer cheaper drugs particularly to developing nations. Thats a good and important question a couple things to note about research and Development Costs 1st is the way that industry paluxy calculates research and Development Costs include things that you need but probably not consider research and development for example the lost opportunity cost of for going investments with an animal or a turn of over 10 percent and the 2nd important thing to note is that these estimates have not been netted of the ubiquitous public contributions that there is a research and Development Process my tax credits grants and subsidies in fact the majority of drugs are developed with some kind of public support for research and development nonetheless regardless of the actual think their research and development is expensive and putting aside the question of who pays for it companies can do recoup their research and Development Costs nobody is asking them to make a loss which is asking them to be transparent about their costs and not profiteer from the pandemic is the need for some sort of global fund to help poorer nations in particular access vaccines and treatment drugs particularly in times like these in the middle of a pandemic absolutely and the way that this is being organized at the moment at least for back scenes is there is something called because of accessibility where some wealthier countries are being asked to pledge money to buy vaccines in advance which then will be distributed according to global equitable allocation framework by the World Health Organizations or country isnt it companies should adhere to this huge or framework once that is out there and so that back in supplies truly allocated based on Public Health needs are not captured by lets narrow political or commercial interests the World Health Organization the bill Gates Foundation and the like are trying to get a more equitable equitable distribution. Of vaccines hows that going to work when you have rich nations snapping in a snapping up all of the the available supply. Absolutely and that is a big concern also for us these bilateral deals really help no one because its been said before and no one is safe until everyone is safe really the world to have heard immunity were going to get this thing so it will be crucial but this is successful in that countries commits a certain proportion of even the bilateral deals that they have structure to facility that will share vaccines of the world to be fair to the likes of Companies Like astra zeneca and johnson and johnson both have said that theyre not that theyre going to produce the vaccine on a not for profit basis what does that mean for for for poorer nations though even on a not for profit basis can they afford them that is a very good question and i think if true both companies should be applauded for their commitment to not profiteer from the pandemic something that a misstep is called for from the very beginning unfortunately what Companies Say and what they do is not always the same for instance if you take johnson and johnson in the past they have claimed that their lowest price for an important t. V. Drug called back within was a not for profit price independent academics estimated that it could be produced at a profit for less than a quarter of that price an m. S. F. Has called for the price to be half and just earlier this month actually they further dropped their supposedly not for profit price by over 30 percent following our to intensive campaigning i think its also important to mention that these pledges only apply for the pandemic period and that sars coby turns and then make theres no guarantee that for prices will be affordable especially for developing countries come the Northern Hemisphere winter where were likely to have a 2nd wave in the pandemic. Is a vaccine going to be in place by then to to limit the effects of a 2nd wave what do you think the likely outcome will be. Well we dont know that yet we know that many groups are working very hard to develop a vaccine but not unknown thats in canada has passed face free trials yet so we dont really know how i think asias those vaccines are going to be and therefore also how likely theyre going to be successful what about the ethics of developing a vaccine treatment in a hurry which is what is whats happening at the moment china for instance testing its vaccine in bangladesh other poorer nations as well a basically at the forefront of experimentation all day. Yes and i think as long as a this is done to i think those strict ethical standards this should be the case too because back scenes and drugs act differently in different patient populations but what it definitely should also mean is that the very populations on which these vaccines and drugs are being tested should have equitable access to them in the future it cannot be that they are just the guinea pigs for Clinical Trials but then wont be able to access the vaccines once they are successful at times like this in the midst of a Global Pandemic should generic drug makers be given licenses to produce much needed treatment drugs absolutely generic drug production will be crucial to meet the demands of this pandemic and National Hoarding of physical supplies of drugs or vaccines is regrettable and should be avoided but actively using intellectual property to prevent generic Drug Companies from producing is immoral and stupid where on this together theres a wealth of research into testing kits this one is produced and set a goal for a dollar is there any way of commercializing that kind of expertise as a as a solution for developing nations. Absolutely i mean accurate rapid diagnostic tests will be great incredibly important to the global covert 900 response given that they are simple to use and while there are over 100 tests on the market the majority have limited to no evidence of diagnostic performance and an accurate test is worse than no tests of Quality Assurance rapid diagnostic tests are needed but once solid evidence for rapid diagnostic tests does emerge it will be crucial to scale up before the production is but its possible and the example you cite is actually an excellent example of a private company my logic in the u. K. Collaborating with the institute to develop a rapid diagnostic test and then in the future locally producing it and send it out for a price that is affordable for governments in the region this pandemic still has a long way to run a vaccine were told may be ready by the end of the year probably more likely to be the middle of next year whats going to be the fairest outcome for both drug makers and developing nations i think the fairest outcome for the public will be that no one dies from covert 19 because they cannot access a drug or a vaccine and the fairest outcome for drug makers would be that the experience of government 1000. 00 houses in a new era of Drug Development which is collaborative open and doesnt have profit as the sole motive friend of asian model its been really good talking talking to you and counting the cost many thanks the for being with us thanks for having me on. Now twitter found itself at the center of a hack that targeted its employees in order to access internal systems fake messages were posted from some of its most famous users accounts requesting big coin payments for a platform that will play an influential role in this years president ial election in november twitters Security Breach is a cause for concern to say the least and of course state actors have also been accused of attempting to hack the burra trees and Drug Companies for covert 19 research and vaccine secrets as more of us are lucky enough to work productively from Home Companies stepping up cybersecurity for employees for one company that helps businesses replace usernames and passwords with biometrics is Silicon Valley based forge rock and im delighted to say its chief executive from russia is with a certain now friend great to have you with us on counting the cost of a Silicon Valley social media platform like twitter can succumb to a hack on earth does it mean for the rest of us. I think he and thanks for having me well what it means is that while we are really enjoying the benefits of Digital Transformation in as consumers new users you know we look to use all the different applications that we can over the internet theres certainly a lot of risks out there as well and that well hack like twitter is very complicated and there are lots of causes and i think theyre still diagnosing all the details what we do know is that part of that happening is caused by compromise credential we all have so many usernames and passwords and when they get stolen crews can use those to really cause this type of trouble so its that kind of balance of the great opportunity of the internet while still some of this risk on Security Problems 51 percent of us apparently still use the same pos would across multiple accounts. With the problem is try to remember all of those those passwords which ones youve set for which account of whats the solution to that. Yes i really do think that you know we think about this Digital Transformation and had the Energy Component is really broken. That thats clearly doesnt work for users because we all hate having so many use names and passwords and it doesnt really work for the websites that are logging onto because that really varies in security and a lot of risk to them because your account can recruit you could be compromised on the good news agent is there are a lot of solutions out there today that can really break this problem and really kill the past for other better ways to be able to recognize us as users especially for lower risk transactions we can actually live in either a password or by recognizing the device that were using our patterns of behavior the way that we do banking we can really get to know you and let you write in and then only have to prompt you for higher levels of authentication maybe up an s. M. S. Code to your phone if youre doing something more risky a lot of biometrics and as you mention today many of us use a fingerprint or face recognition to get access to our phone why cant we use that same credential that axis our counts its more secure and more convenient than using the old broken username and password approach of those methods you talk about the biometrics the facial recognition the fingerprint of those impossible to hack. No nothings impossible pack nothings impossible but its definitely much harder. And i would say its youre not a fan of getting just with the biometric theres a theres a series of things that we have said to can do to get to know you to understand you and ensure that you are you its about managing risk and reducing risk so again its not only that biometric but its also your history where youre logging in from you know the type to device you used to log in theres a lot of ways we can get to know you to to let you access information without letting the bad guys in house locked been for you from a with a lot of people working from home now has that translated into a Better Business fear well you know its interesting out here in california obviously you know weve got a lot of work to do to bring this code under control and its really been a big problem for a lot of people so we hope it gets resolved very quickly but i think that in Silicon Valley what we are seeing is sort of the tale of 2 businesses there are certain sectors that are actually growing more quickly in this time cybersecurity you know Work Force Collaboration Companies Like zoom and certainly identity and Digital Transformation so its growing quite quickly so were seeing an increase in demand well companies that focused on things like you know i travel in the entertainment hospitality those businesses are really suffering quite a bit so yes i think we are seeing increased on in this type of Digital Transformation and identity Business Today and what does all of that mean for for california itself for the Tech Industry and for investors. Well i think that its really hard to say i would say for the Tech Industry you know part of what california has been so successful is when you put a lot of really talented people in a relatively small area we bump into each other all the time and thats the kind of way ideas and new Companies Get generated all of us are now working at home and leveraging a lot of technologies to be able to Work Together so i think its really t. V. To see whether this model of you know getting a lot of smart people in small area to generate new ideas works in the future or we really shift to Something Else so but certainly everybodys really Remote Worker now and all of us are really minging all of our digital lives online so its really important that we give each other tools to be able to do that really easily while still retaining the security so we can avoid those things like the twitter accident and you think working from home is here for the long term no well you know i do think weve got there a permanent change i think the days of kind of going to an Office Every Day as a place to work every day is probably not coming back and i think in some cases thats a really good thing is weve proven we can actually be more productive at phone at home shes me but then again i do think theres nothing that replaces that in person communication so i think offices were transformed from a day to day Work Environment to really more of a collaboration how do we get together 102 days a week with our team members because theres nothing like that face to face to do that collaboration and idea generation from its been really good to talk to many thanks again for being with us. Thank you a. J. Have a great day. And thats our show for this week if youd like to comment on anything youve seen you can tweet me im at a finnigan on twitter using the hash tag a j c t c when you do or you could drop us a line counting the cost of aljazeera doc that is our email address as always theres plenty more few online at aljazeera dot com slash c. T. C. That takes you straight to a page and day youll find individual reports links event time episodes music catchable. But that is it for this edition of counting the cost of Adrian Finnegan for the whole team here in doha thanks for being with us the news on aljazeera is next. 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