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Comment by simonCGN | Hacker News Reader

It it a Biontech vaccine. Pfizer is only the manufacturer. After all, you also do not call the MacBook a Foxconn Laptop.

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In Germany, almost everyone refers to it as the Biontech vaccine. For obvious reasons. I would even go so far as to say that most people here don't realize it's the same as the "Pfizer vaccine". (On the other hand, the Moderna vaccine is referred to as the "Moderna vaccine".)

In Germany BioNTech also involved in the production.. so it is also fair to call it as that..

But I'm a tad annoyed that they pronounce it "Bion-Tech" rather than "Bio-N-Tech", the latter was the intended pronunciation by the owners, I think.

Pfizer (and Fosun) is also the distributor, ran the trials, and handled much of the public/regulator/media facing communications. As such, the Pfizer branding is not surprising.

Production is a multi-step process involving both Pfizer and BioNTech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID-...

In China we call it Fosun/Biontech and that's fine. I would never call it the Fosun vaccin out of respect for the people who actually made the breakthrough.

Good to know. That sounds more reasonable than just Pfizer.

In HK most people refer to it as BioNTech these days, despite the government's confusing use of the official name "Comirnaty".

The government description seemingly tries to credit Fosun with its development: "mRNA technology platform - by Fosun Pharma in collaboration with the German drug manufacturer BioNTech" [1]

On the plus side, HK is one of the few places in the world where anyone aged 16 or over can currently get their choice of free vaccine (BioNTech or Sinovac) at a nearby vaccine center in about 20 minutes with a booking delay of a couple of days (for defrosting).

Unfortunately, few seem to want it, with bookings running at about 10k/day despite 40k/day capacity for BioNTech alone.

[1] https://www.covidvaccine.gov.hk/en/vaccine

Likewise, look at how Astra-Zeneca made many missteps, mishandling data, sending out wrong doses in trials. Pfizer did not make these mistakes. The distributing company not only matters, it matters a LOT.

We're past that now. It's known as Pfizer in the official language of too many cities and countries.

No, we are not past that. Just because it is used wrongly it does not mean that it needs to stay that way.

What happens on the internet, stays on the internet.

Shit happens. Every tissue in the US is called kleenex even though that is a brand.

Lots of people call all kinds of skewers Doner Kebab even though that's incorrect.

It's speech and sometimes it doesn't fit our nice rules.

> Every tissue in the US is called kleenex even though that is a brand.

The only people who call them that are at least 50. Everyone I know except my grandmother calls them tissues. Things change. Shit happens.

Can't we all just hate on the now official name for the vaccine of "Comirnaty"?

The actual INN of "tozinameran" is at least better. Not that INNs really get used for products like this.

Marketing person asked to find a catchy name: "This is literally a Covid vaccine, I'll just grab a handful of scrabble pieces and it'll sell anyway"

It is maybe for you but not everywhere, i can see it being referred to as Biontech just as often, if not oftener than Pfizer. Maybe because Germany is our neighboor, but maybe also because it is "more right"

Yeah, I was speaking more to California and the US

"many cities and countries" means California, good to know.

I've been ruined by your extremely effective oratory skill.

I only know it as Biontech-Pfizer vaccine.

"Only the manufacturer"?

You mean the company that scaled up production to hundreds of millions of doses, ran clinical trials in dozens of countries for tens of thousands of patients, put together all the regulatory documentation for dozens of countries, including negotiations with regulators, then developed a worldwide logistics system to get the vaccine where it's needed. And did all that with few stumbles in less than a year.

So yeah, they are "just the manufacturer".

But they re like Fosun, one of several. Ofc it s amazing how Fosun managed to vaccinate a million of us in Hong Kong, shipping ultra cold vaccines from Germany and setting up factories soon in Singapore. But man, the vaccine is made by Biontech and without them fosun would be shipping nothing at all.

As for Pfizer, they do nothing at all for me in Hong Kong, see ?

No, they aren't like Fosun. Fosun took possession of finished product and sent it to people doing the vaccinations. That's it.

Pfizer did: 1) scaled up production to hundreds of millions of doses, 2) ran clinical trials in dozens of countries for tens of thousands of patients, 3) put together all the regulatory documentation for dozens of countries, including negotiations with regulators, 4) then developed a worldwide logistics system to get the vaccine where it's needed, including to local distributors like Fosun.

It's more like calling a Dell an Intel. Intel arguably provided the most important R&D in the heart of the computer. But the manufacturing, testing, distribution, branding, sales, negotiations, regulations, etc is all Dell. So go ahead and call your PC an Intel, but it's not wrong to call it a Dell either.

I get where you're at but if you go to the pharmacist and ask which one they have they're going to call this one the Pfizer one.

Same for the Janssen vaccine (from the Netherlands), which is called Johnson & Johnson vaccine everywhere.

That's because Janssen is a wholly owned subsidiary of J&J.

The better analogy would be Foxconn.

True, thanx

It's also GNU/Linux, but few people call it like that.

That’s why Pfizer is behind the whole waving of intellectual property rights so they don’t have to pay Biontech a dime and why the German government is against the waving of rights.

I'm curious, what country are you in? Pfizer is, in fact, against waving the IP rights. You can read it yourself in this letter from their CEO:

https://www.pfizer.com/news/hot-topics/why_pfizer_opposes_th...

Specifically this section:

Which brings me to the second question. Is the proposed waiver going to improve the supply situation or create more problems? And my answer is categorically the latter.

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