pursuant to section 11-b of house resolution 188, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow for morning hour debate and noon for legisla earlier, troy carter was sworn in, winning an election in louisiana's second district. announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies, and more. >> the greatest talent on earth is the place you call home. right now, we are facing our greatest challenge. that is why sparklight is

working to keep you connected. announcer: sparklight support c-span, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to c-span. host: we are back with our guest , the ceo of a company. vaccine manufacturing and patent rights. let's remind our viewers what the organization is. guest: good morning. the biotechnology innovation organization is about 1000 companies. our focus is how do we drive access for patients to new medicine, and secondly, how do we drive the innovation underpinning biotechnology?

biotechnology is a science of building technologies that help people find medicines, so we spend our time in the organization focusing on these two things, discussing it with congress, helping the president and others to understand the value of it. one of the most important points is this industry delivers 70% of all new medicines in the world, so it is an important part of american industrial infrastructure. host: your reaction to the biden administration announcing they support waving the intellectual protection for covid-19 vaccines? here is the u.s. trade representative, this is a global health crisis in the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic call for extraordinary measures.

the administration believes strongly in ip protection, but supports the waiver of those protections for covid-19 vaccines. what is the impact of this on the biotech industry? host: a more important question -- guest: a more important question is what is the impact on individuals and the pandemic. waving protections does not stop the pandemic. what you have to do is get shots into arms as fast as possible. when you wave the patent, that is a small step in a long journey. it would take 18 months for any kind of waiver to have any impact around the world. if we have a hope of stopping this pandemic, what we need to

do is ramp up production in those facilities that are high-quality, know what they are doing, don't have to reinvent, train people, and otherwise, and then ensure that we in the united states can export these vaccines at a price that is affordable for those abroad, and that is what will make a difference. you have to build the plants, train the people, then set in place the complicated supply chain, how you get the different components of the vaccine to the factory, and last of all, don't forget, the vaccine we are using most prominently in the u.s. are those by moderna and pfizer, very effective at doing the job,

and bottom-line, they also require but is called cold chain, meaning you have to keep them at lower temperature, meaning you have to have the right kind of refrigerators. i can imagine in the middle east, africa, asia that anybody has set up with the quality and capability to distribute these types of vaccines, even if they could manufacture them in time, and they cannot. the patent waiver itself represents a disappointing step, one which will confuse people, and while it will give them hope , it is a false hope. the better way to go is to ramp up manufacturing here and get the shots into arm immediately. host: how much money do these companies spend for these

vaccines, and how much could they lose by lifting of these intellectual patents? guest: first, these new vaccines did not come in one instance. it was not any one individual company that built the underlying understanding, billions of dollars have been invested in the industry over 20 years to 30 years, which has led to the capability last year when suddenly the pandemic washed over us, all of that very, very intensive investment over many years was brought to fruition. the particular companies, moderna, pfizer, they were able to build on that information, then invested billions of dollars, not just in the

research, but manufacturing. the u.s. government help them, but the bottom line is that the research is cumulative in many billions of dollars to begin with, and subsequently, the investments by private investors in either and/or moderna and biontech led to the mrna vaccines, and investment, j&j had been investing for years and knew how it could come to table with a similar vaccine. with regards to the loss of what it might mean for the top line

of these companies, it is not clear, because october last year, moderna said they would be willing to waive patents, license, and provide vaccines to others. it is not at all clear what they lose in the long term. in the short term, the industry suffers because what happens is people lose confidence that their investments in other companies, cancer companies, diabetes companies, where they are making novel breakthroughs of the same time we see here that have occurred during the pandemic, investor take a double look and say, wait a second, i am investing in a company and suddenly the government will in and take away those patents which allow me to have the certainty that i would

investment could give us a good return long term. it is incalculable at the end of the day. the short-term uncertainty could cause companies to slow down research and others to say i do not want to invest in this area, and that would be very disappointing, so i think what is really important is that we understand what we are trying to accomplish, which is shots in the on. host: a tweet from a viewer, india has a robust pharmaceutical industry. if they have a waiver, they could probably begin manufacturing rapidly. guest: many countries don't have that. countries like china, japan, india, russia, the european union, of course they have the ability to take this on, of course they have the ability to start the manufacture, there is

no doubt about that, but the real question is will they be able to do it in time, get shots in arms, when in fact we are already running at vast capacity in this country and we could get it to them. pandemics don't wait for anybody. what about the other countries? china has for a long time tried to get its hands on this technology. why are we trying to provide to a nation that has been trying to get this technology from us on a plate, the technology which is effectively core to the u.s. strategic assets in the biotechnology industry? also for that matter, russia, when they produce sputnik v, they send out other messages denigrating other vaccines so we

will give them this one? no. the better thing to do is to produce billions of doses in this country and get it to other countries immediately, rather than take american investors money and know-how and send it abroad. host: start dialing. we will take your questions and comments about the vaccine and the technology behind it. in the newspapers this morning, age limit lowered for the pfizer vaccine. the fda has approved for use 12 to 15. what is the scientific take away? guest: this is good news. viruses spread through a and find safe havens where they can mutate. when they are in any part of the population, they start to change

naturally, and as we have seen in hotspots, like the terrible disasters you are seeing in india, when new variants arrives from mutation, you want to ensure that that opportunity for the virus to change its behavior, profile does not arrive, and now with the kids, this is great news, because we cannot only ensure that children can go to parties, can meet others can go to school safely, but also, and you can prevent clearly the illnesses that do occur, although less than an adult, by far, but you can ensure that this virus is not given a safe haven and address that segment of the population where the virus is swirling around.

every illness, every death is a tragedy, let's not forget that, but at the same time, you can start to remove the virus from our population. that is a very big deal. host: with hotspots like india, vaccine hesitancy in this country, what percentage do you put the risk out of this virus mutating in the vaccines currently available are no longer effective? guest: we do not actually know. i think it would be unwise to speculate, but what we do know is that we see in south africa, india, great britain, every time , every time you give a chance to this virus, it takes it. and what it does is it begins to mutate. there are several kinds of mutation. one makes it more infectious,

that is what we are seeing in india, and it is spreading superfast. the version that developed in great britain out of the original virus spread quickly through the u.s. these are variants which take the opportunity to infect you and become more infectious. there is another kind, one that leads to more harm, that is that it is not just more infectious, but more virulent. so the more we can crush the hotspots and the faster -- that is why 18 months is not even remotely the right thing to be doing -- we need to crush it now, because we don't want to see any.

variants turn the corner into a bad place. host: is there any chance that people who have these variants and were vaccinated became ill? guest: actually, we know that once you are vaccinated, you can be reinfected, a very small percentage in this country, but nevertheless, what is important is that even the variants, there is a serious amount of efficacy. when you do have that, death rates go down. even if you get infected, you have a far lower incidence of poor outcome of any kind, of the good news, the very good news is that these vaccines do appear to be fighting against the variants . the better news that is

important to understand is that pfizer and maternal, because of the mrna vaccine types, they can pivot on a dime and think about how to tackle the new variants should they come along, and improve the effect of their vaccines on them, so i have a lot of confidence in the way they are able to manage new variants. host: one person wants to know in the tweet, ask the guest with the profit margins are, what are the forecast for those two companies? guest: i don't know. have a talk to these companies. they publish that. i don't follow that. i do know something, that without the investment those companies make, this country would still be shut down. what would we be experiencing?

let's not focus on, did they make money out of it. i hope they do. let's ask a different question, if they were not here, what would we be doing? we would have millions out of work. people who are old would be dying. we know that. we don't need to run that experiment. what is the price of that? but having said that, listen carefully to the statements of both the ceos of moderna, astrazeneca, pfizer. they are not out to make a profit which is not unreasonable. some of these companies have said they are willing to send their product abroad for cap at-cost. some of them are making money

out of the contract, not profit. they are making money. yes, they are. it costs money to build the plants, put in the infrastructure, so from my perspective -- i am not arguing for profits or nonprofits -- i am asking this person and all the other listeners thinking about this, what would have happened if we did not have the vaccines? who would have built them? nobody. host: let's go to virginia. caller: good morning. my question is, you mentioned that the key for controlling the pandemic is to create more vaccine and ship it to countries in the middle east and africa, but you mentioned they don't have the equipment like refrigerators to keep it at a certain temperature, so power we help them if they don't have

that equipment? do you think that maybe we should push for the release of the johnson & johnson vaccine since it does not need a cold temperature to distributive vaccine? i read somewhere where one person, the person who discovered the messenger rna, she is getting compensated. guest: right on target. a veteran would be asking how can we set up distribution in all of these nations, so that we are sure, for example in brazil, the very impoverished parts of south africa, all across the middle east, etc., that they can get the right kind of vaccine, and one of high quality, not some fake vaccine.

nearly 40% of medicines in africa or asia happened to be no cost or fix -- knockoff or fakes, but let's be clear, you need this medicine we put in our arms going to these nations, so an investment constructing the right kind of safe and appropriate distribution could be done. the machines can be manufactured quickly. you can make a refrigerator superfast, versus building a plan for a high-quality vaccine, so that is number one. number two, boy, we should all take our hats off to what j&j did, good, solid, interesting results. you are right, we then should turn to our government. can we encourage these companies to export, as they said they will do -- the ceo of j&j, since

1947, when they created their credo that they would treat everybody, what matters is the patient, so as far as i am concerned, those are important, practical steps. you have put your finger on them . how do we get them out there? high quality, and in a way that we ensure that everybody gets them? as to the lady who discovered the vaccine, the mrna modification, she is a wonderful tale and i encourage her to read about her. i don't know if she gets compensation. i hope she does, because she did something special, and in the wilderness. if you read her story, you will find out for a long time that which she was considered to be doing was considered to be never feasible, in other words, how do

you create an artificial mrna, one that does not cause the body to react against mrna and a weight that is harmful to the body, and she figured it out. it was great. host: columbia, mississippi, good morning. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. yes, i want to know if the drug companies are willing to forgo the patent, but i wonder how much the politicians get. everything they do, they see that dollar in their pockets. they will not do a thing without that. they have profited throughout the pandemic. i wonder how many is doing it for the good of america in the world. thank you. guest: i apologize. i did not hear your name. host: ava. guest: good morning, ava.

one of the most remarkable things about the biotech industry is people go into work every day, try to find medicines, and fail. what keeps them going every day, and literally, and i know this because i have been there for 30 years, because they want to find the medicine. it is so amazing to see these people walk into work every day and run an experiment that does not work. what motivates them to go the next day? and it is your point, every single one of them wants to find a better medicine. one of the most remarkable things about this industry, it is not like building an automobile. it is not like making a sandwich. you did not know what is going to come out of your everyday in biotech. you think about the right experiment, how you run that experiment, ask yourself, let me

test this out, will it work? i can't tell you how much i admire these people when they walk in ther,e because the best majority -- there, because the majority of their experiments fail. their motivation is defined medicine a medicine that cures people. host: north carolina with a text, if you recovered from covid-19 and have antibodies, would you only need the booster shot? guest: it is not known yet. the recommendation is you take both. so, so far, we have 114 million americans vaccinated, so that is a huge number of people. we believe possibly there is another 132 million who have had the infection, so these are

vast numbers, so the information you are seeking from me, i don't have that. i'm not sure anybody has it, but we will get it. at this stage, what is also clear is that all those people who have been vaccinated, and we have the two, right? all of us who do have that will have a booster at some stage. the timing of that booster is not clear, but this is a little bit like the flu vaccine. i am not troubled by that and i think we should all expect it and know it is coming, but your question, do you need to have, should you only have one vaccine, booster if you had the previous, if you had covid before, it is not clear, but it will become clear. host: if you have antibodies, do

you become more sick when you get the vaccine? guest: i don't think that is necessarily the case. it is the timing of when you have the vaccine. as you know, there is a period of time they want to relapse before you actually have the vaccine, so i think people have taken into account that you could be sicker, so the best way to prevent that is to have a period of time since you have been ill and have the vaccine, so i think a lot of thought has gone into that. host: will the vaccine alter your dna? guest: that is a complete myth. it cannot possibly do that. i don't know where this came from, to be perfectly honest, but the reality is that it is a complete impossibility, not even

remotely possible. the reason why is it scientific. it is very straightforward. what this particular vaccine, what the mrna vaccines do, for example, is they actually contain a fragment of what is in the fires ok -- virus, ok? and it hijacks your body, you cells machine to make that , and it requires a small fragment, that little red spike we have all seen, and your body reacts against it, but there is no possible way that these vaccines can change your dna, because it does not have the machinery to do it. host: can it impact fertility?

guest: again, a strange and odd myth. i don't know where that came from. anybody saying that is trying to make a point. it is a myth. it is false. it is not me asserting that, the data shows it categorically. there is a wonderful set of papers -- not papers, a collection published by "nature" that describes all of the papers over the last year. it is a very rich set of data. there is not a shred of evidence in that data that even comes close to indicating that maybe it has an effect on fertility. it is just not even remotely real. host: one person in louisiana, you are next, sir. caller: good morning.

i had covid. i am fully vaccinated. i have herd immunity. what is the problem? they have all something, social media, how are we going to get over this if everybody does what they want to do? i want to go to the gymnasium. i can't even go back to the gymnasium. they don't reply that you have been vaccinated. host: ok, so what do we need to get? what is the number we need to get to for herd immunity and being able to go to the gymnasium without a mask? guest: good morning.

i am glad to be talking to you and delighted. you are one of the people who knows what covid can do, and congratulations you have had your vaccine. you're not just helping yourself, but everyone else as well. it is a pleasure to talk to you. with regard to herd immunity, this is an important consideration. but those of us who have studied pandemics and epidemics, we know for example, with measles, you need somewhere north of 95% of the population vaccinated and or immune, and fortunately everybody has behaved well, largely will, so we have an occasional flareup, but by and large, we have that under control. in the same case for example, in

polio, we don't have polio. we have herd immunity. that was about 80%. so where are we today on the possibility of herd immunity? folks like the person who calm are helping -- called are helping. we know roughly 114 million people have been vaccinated. we know at least 132 million have had their first doses. and we know probably close to estimates, for example, from one person, who is a respected researcher, that 110 million other people have been vaccinated, have had covid. so, if we take that in totality, we are kind of roughly 50%,

maybe a little bit more, maybe closer to 60% of people. we do not know exactly if we need 95% or 80%. dr. fauci estimates you need between 70% to 85% of people having been infected or having vaccinations. the good news is we are getting there, and we are getting there superfast. we can take an example of israel , where nearly 60% of nearly everybody has been vaccinated, and it is pretty open as a society. they are not seeing many deaths there. they are still wearing masks face-to-face, because they are being sensible, but they are going to the gym and behaving in

a way that is very sensible, so if we take the lesson from israel, where last week they reported for the first time that there were no deaths, that getting us up to 60% to 70% of people who are either vaccinated or have had covid, you are getting close to what dr. fauci said. i think we are very close, very close. host: john, new jersey good morning to you. caller: good morning. interesting conversation. i appreciate it. you have a very smooth presentation. you mentioned something i was glad to hear. you mentioned polio, and i thought that the great dr. jonas salk, who upon completion of that work simply put his work

out to the world to benefit from. the profit motive is pervasive all over this planet, and we must remember the american people kicked in $1 billion towards the development of these vaccines. it is not like we are paupers asking for something. we must be conscious of what is stimulating this and what should be put out there for the benefit of humanity. i am old enough to remember that when scientists and physicians on completion of the work, simply put it out. it was in the newspapers, the media, and the work was put out there to be gone over by their fellow scientists in various capacities.

it was put out there. when the profit motive took over and it goes to these universities also want the profit motive took over, everybody was kicked to the side and the profit motive is paramount. host: john, john. caller: i am a defender of israel. host: i'm going to jump in. before you respond to him, johnson & johnson received a $1 billion manufacturing award, modernity billion dollars, astrazeneca $1.2 billion, and pfizer nearly $2 billion. guest: absolutely. look, let's take a look at what it takes to scale up and invest in the kinds of infrastructure you need. much of this money was actually used to purchase, not just invest in the manufacturing and

distribution, so one has to be a little careful about the terminology that one is using. with regard to development, they did not receive money to develop it. with the government did was fantastic, to speed up and ensure the fda was able to review the materials very quickly, but i think john's comment is very important. can i return to that? host: absolutely. guest: john, you are 100% right. if we had a world where you come, come and the government paid for us to find things in our motivation was nothing to do with profit, then indeed, this is fantastic. this would be an ideal world. unfortunately or fortunately, what we have created in america

is an engine that stimulates innovation. that is a very fortunate thing. part of that engine that stimulates us is the requirement that we invest in companies to get them to do things. i understand that is the profit motive, but quite frankly, that is what drives mcdonald's and every single industry, and unless you are going to completely change the totality of how we as a society work, then we must have things that incentivize people to do things. part of that is you and me, we believe in doing good. we want people to benefit. we will donate our time and effort. but when it comes to investing in new technologies, who is going to take the risk when you don't know what will come out the other side?

the only way to do that is to have investors who need a return, because they themselves have to raise money in order for them to prove to their investors they are worthwhile investing in. it's not the government investing in it. these are individuals, funds, folks taking money out of their pocket to make something happen that nobody believes could happen. let me give you an example. today, we have an incredible development in cancer calm immuno oncology, the weight that we harness -- called immuno ecology, the way harness the ability to fight cancer. it is a little bit less, but about half of all the investment

in the pharmaceutical industry goes into this. in 2009, nobody believed in it. companies thought it was a wacky idea. scientists thought there was no evidence that it worked. one company continued to think about how they would tackle this incredible idea, stop cancer hiding from your white cells, let them do their business and attack the cancer. that is why it is cold immuno oncology. -- called immuno oncology. this company was bought by bristol-myers group for $2.3 billion. the reason why bristol-myers spent that amount of money was to say, how can we answer the question to tackle this incredibly important question.

nobody wants to believe in it. we will spend $2.3 billion and by this company and see if we cannot conquer cancer. no government stepped in, no public good stepped in, the intent was conquer cancer. they brought it into thousand nine, and nobody believed in it, and because of that acquisition -- in 2009, and nobody believed in it, and because of that acquisition, we possibly have cures for cancer. i agree with you. sometimes you look at this and say, gee, i wish we had an ideal world where we had investments from the government, took out of our pockets, but you and i know that that will not

happen. nobody would take a chance but the person who is willing to. and for them, they deserve the return. industry lives by that, every day failing, every day investing in crazy ideas that may not work, but if they do, they need the return. otherwise, how would you stimulate this in the future? are we willing to give up new cancer discoveries, conquering diabetes, alzheimer's? not at all. if we don't get in return, who will invest for the next pandemic, because it will come. we have to find the next discovery. host: for our viewers who want to learn more, go to bio.org or follow the organization on

twitter. thank you for the conversation. guest: thank you very much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] announcer: c-span's washington journal, every day, the news of the day. we discussed policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, naacp president and ceo derek johnson on voting access legislation in congress in several states. congressman mcclintock talks about gop leadership changes in president biden's legislative agenda. we would talk about the mechanics of the gop confidence vote on liz cheney with the hill's senior staff writer, followed by a conversation on how her constituents are reacting to her ouster from leadership with nick reynolds.

and a look at one congresswoman's rise in leadership ranks with edward mckinley. watch c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern, wednesday morning, and join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. announcer: house republicans are meeting behind closed doors tomorrow to vote on whether to remove liz cheney from her leadership role, as republican conference chair. this move comes after liz cheney pushback on claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. earlier this evening, she stated her position from the house for and talked about the importance of upholding the u.s. constitution. i have some thoughts aut