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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

Oxford one is also going to be easier to manufacture given that it is based on existing technology.

Many countries e.g. Australia are licensing the formula so this is an important aspect.

the mRNA style viruses will probably decrease in cost exponentially the same way that DNA sequencing and computer technology have dropped in price.

However, mRNA vaccines require low temperature storage and are in general harder to handle. This translates to additional cost in production, throughout the logistics chain and delivery.

I think it's likely that they'll need to be distributed frozen, but there's a lot that can be done researching preservatives. The the moderna vaccine is higher temperature than the pfveizer one for this reason.

Pfizer are also working on a lyophilised, aka freeze-dried, version of their vaccine, which would not need to be stored at -80 C. This is from July [1], not sure if there is any more news:

> But we also hope to have, as we always do in life cycle management, a new lyophilized formulated vaccine by -- within maybe a year after initial delivery such as fourth quarter 2021 and the lyophilized formulation could be stored in refrigerator.

[1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/317678438/files/PFE-USQ_Transcript_202...

I read the opposite - producing mRNA fragments at scale is supposedly cheaper than producing the inactivated vector viruses with the correct payload.

no real idea, but my guess is that its likely true that mRNA fragment production is cheaper, but inactivated vector manufacturing is already scaled up and out globally and mRNA is not-- existing labs around the world can maybe be more easily equipped to scale up production?

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