Japan pushes homegrown vaccines for coronavirus to secure supply

Double take. Capitalism at its finest.

The government gives taxpayers money to profit making pharnas to

Produce vaccines and drugs, the pharmas then charge the taxpayers who funded the production exhorbitant price.

In normal business world, a shareholder isn't charged heavily by a business that the shareholder invested in.

Open to huge corruption and then some.

Hmm... risky from a healthcare perspective. They must have high confidence that the domestic industry will be able to deliver a vaccine with high efficacy. Or perhaps don't even care if it succeeds or not. My impression as of late is that lives don't matter to the Japanese government.

Last year, the flu season hit particularly hard because Japan's vaccine program hit the wrong strain.

@Tom

'Or perhaps don't even care if it succeeds or not. My impression as of late is that lives don't matter to the Japanese government.'

It has always been that way in Japan.

Just cast your mind back to 1941-1945.

All armchair critics above doesn's have a clue.

The reason why J Government is pushing for homegrown vaccines is to ensure Japanese citizens will have access to them not needing to wait in line for the vaccine since the nation of origin will always gain first access and production of vaccines takes time incubating them in egg whites.

International pharmas will also place a hefty premium which J Government will have no control.

With a Japanese pharma company the government can regulate the price through law.

Triring: "All armchair critics above doesn's have a clue."

We know Japan did not take advantage of tests offered by countries like Germany and groups like the WHO and instead pushed for local, state hospitals to be used for testing less than 0.001% of the population, and only then after they were on death's door (and if they died while waiting it must have been from something else). We know they pushed for local productions of a vaccine already, to have it fail, and then agreed to pay for the American company despite no testing having been done.

"The reason why J Government is pushing for homegrown vaccines is to ensure Japanese citizens will have access to them"

hahaha. Right. The naiveté is almost cute.

With almost everything the Japanese companies and government will seek to dominate the Japanese market for profit at the expense of health...

Again ignorance and arrogance walks hand in hand.

Testing was only 70% accurate making it unreliable and meaningless to do it in the mass since it would have overrun the medical facilities like the Government stated.

then after they were on death's door

Wrong again showing again your ignorance, they showed symptoms not dying. They had to confirm if they had contracted COVID-19 to ensure the protocol.

30% of either false positive or false negative only aggravates the problem with either a person not needing to be hospitalized occupying a bed in quarantine or a patient presuming s/he is fine walking in public spreading the virus.

Look at your beloved SK it's at brinks of a second wave due to the mass testing resulting to false hope of safeness.

Japan won't actually do anything. Everything out of Japan is just talk.

Definitely for the best for Japan and good news that there are dozens of vaccine candidates in the works. If a vaccine is developed in Japan, Japanese have to be the first to receive them.

I wouldn't trust anything whatsoever that comes out of the Americas and even Europe; they have shown the world their true incompetent colours and you'd need coronavirus infecting your brain to think that these places have done anything remotely resembling even an average job.

Japan's enthusiasm for globalization is fading fast.

The only shortages I remember in Japan are butter and toilet paper - both of which are supplied almost entirely thru domestic supply chains.

Pls be very serious abt this action, human lives are at stake. Not capitalism.

My impression as of late is that lives don't matter to the Japanese government.

US over 100k dead and Europe even more, including bodies on the streets in Europe and even abandoned bodies and soiled patients in Canadian nursing homes. You wouldn't even expect that from a warzone in Syria.

But yeah you're right, the J government doesn't care about lives! LMAO what an amusing and sad joke, and a disgusting insult to all the dead in Europe and America

There is no vaccine possible. Even if you make it, it will be old. Why people get so insistent on this issue? You have very effective cures with recovered people's plasma transfusion... 100% secure, 99,9% rate of recovery even in one week and almost free-of-charge, since the plasma comes form blood donations... You could cure it also with ozone therapy... a machine of really modest cost of a clinic that produces ozone (enriched O2), totally natural, that you inhale or use to filtrate through your blood through a simple transfusion-like process. Also that one 99% effective. People do not talk about them because they are based on natural elements that can't be patented and sold for high prices like vaccines.

There is no vaccine even for HIV, SARS-1, SARS-" that have been known since decades now... it simply is not possible or effective. It is just business... grab money for something not resolutive.

Unbelievably self centred, egotistical and rampantly nationalistic.

Whoever manages to develop a vaccine or effective treatment, the scale of the pandemic is simply too great for the productive capacity of any one company, especially a startup. Licensed manufacturing will be the norm across the globe so these petty nationalistic attitudes are both pathetic and misplaced.

I maybe wrong but I don't think we will need one here in Japan. We had a million Chinese tourists in Shibuya in January and February. Also lots of Japanese all over the world. Can't wait for the antibody test results.

The faster they find the cure, the fast people will feel safety.

It's not "Made In Japan" label that matters in coronavirus vaccine and medication; it's the effectiveness that matters.

If there is an effective vaccine, then Japan ought to import it ASAP.

it's the effectiveness that matters.

If there is an effective vaccine, then Japan ought to import it ASAP.

Nope the most important is availability which is not assured with vaccine developed in other countries since it can only be manufactured in limited quantities.

It also means that fate will be placed in another nation's mercy if relying on another nation.

I would love to hear your tune change when Japan develops a vaccine and SK has no other options but to beg Japan for it.

Is the Japanese government trying to ensure Japan Inc. can profit through a homegrown corona vaccine, or is it just trying to secure the vaccine for its population free of foreign patents? The simply answer is YES. Anyone insisting it is one or the other only is missing some details.

Anyway even if a vaccine is found it will be just like all the other cold and flu related vaccines and be only 50 percent or less effective. So why is the idea being treated as a complete fix? Its not remotely. Far better solutions are found in public awareness, proper nutrition, exercise, hygiene, etc and there is no need to wait, hope or pray for them....its all doable right now.

Anyway even if a vaccine is found it will be just like all the other cold and flu related vaccines and be only 50 percent or less effective. 

Though I'm more hopeful, such an disappointing scenario is also likely. With that being the case, we'd have to go on to find alternative course of action; for instance, to develop treatment drugs, to beef up the entire healthcare readiness, etc.

We can't stay still for good, lock ourselves down for nothing but to wait for a "savoir" vaccine to come into being. Life should move on. That's my quick understanding of what Tokyo Gov. Koike means "With Corona".

The only problem with this is that Japan doesn't have a proven vaccine and is less likely to develop one without collaboration. However, if Japan does choose to collaborate, it needs to steer clear of working with China.

TomJune 3  04:47 pm JST Last year, the flu season hit particularly hard because Japan's vaccine program hit the wrong strain.

If Japan was hit hard by the flu last year it has almost nothing to do with the vaccine and the fact that relatively few Japanese get vaccinated.

It is absolutely in Japan's interest to develop a vaccine IN Japan, both to ensure availability and control pricing. World citizens will watch an interesting combination of science, capitalism and ethics as for-profit research companies around the world race to find a vaccine that can prove effective against some, most or all strains of the virus. The payoff for successful companies will be huge, and it will be one of those rare cases where profit is recognized as acceptable and deserved by value of the generated good for all.

Japan is going ahead with their own vaccine because look at how the world is right now. Trump is pulling out of WHO, China is flexing its muscles, EU is sorta together, but the universal medical sphere is very chaotic. Even the future for the esteemed Center for Disease Control, who Japan respects is uncertain. I don't blame Japan.

I can understand it.

What if Trump is re-elected, or he tries to call off the election to keep from losing and risk prison for financial fraud (the reason he is fighting so hard to keep his taxes secret and away from NY prosecutors)?

Trump has already said that a vaccine developed in the US will be for Americans.

It's foolish to trust that another country will share it.

Trump has already said that a vaccine developed in the US will be for Americans.

Why wouldn't the Japanese subsidiary of the foreign firm make and distribute the vaccine in Japan? All the major pharmas are multinationals with subsidiaries or at least partners in Japan that could be licensed to do the job.

Abe's strategy risks pouring resources into a large number of potential losers, rather than focusing on the smaller number of the most promising ones.

JeffLeeJune 3  06:39 pm JST Japan's enthusiasm for globalization is fading fast. The only shortages I remember in Japan are butter and toilet paper - both of which are supplied almost entirely thru domestic supply chains.

Japan has a low level of food security thanks, in part, to a backwards, 19th Century agricultral system, no natural resources and imports more than half of its material goods. Japan lives or dies with globalized trade.