International Trade committee  There's actually a difference between the agreement and the way in which the agreement can be interpreted. The TRIPS Agreement was signed in the mid-1990s. From that point on, countries sought to interpret the agreement through what are known as TRIPS-plus provisions. That caus

International Trade committee  It's not an issue of the production capacity being a constraint or not; it's a question of whether we have available production capacity right now that is not being put to use. The answer to this question is “yes”. The other question is, “Why is this?” On this, trying to maintai

International Trade committee  Contrary to Moderna, this is not just a PR exercise. There is real, untapped vaccine manufacturing capacity that does exist, that is not being used fully, and the WHO also agrees with that statement. What do we do now? It's there, and we're putting in place obstacles in order t

International Trade committee  No, it's not. The international community initially wanted to set up a patent pool, and companies were very reluctant to take part. Instead, they favoured establishing the buying platform known as COVAX, which completely adheres to the intellectual property regime.

International Trade committee  Yes, that's absolutely right. That's what C-TAP and the MPP are. The problem for COVAX is that it has to compete with yet another player in this war of vaccine nationalism dominated by a fend-for-yourself mentality. COVAX hasn't been able to compete in a marketplace where the we

International Trade committee  Yes, that's right. COVAX is becoming yet another competitor in the global marketplace—a dysfunctional marketplace. Only the wealthiest nations are getting vaccine doses. Low-income countries have received just 0.2% of the 2.5 billion doses distributed thus far. COVAX is unable t

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. Essentially, my answer is this: that is not the position of the WHO, which is also of the view that vaccine production capacity is not being used right now. What's important to understand is that we created a system where the ability to make a profi

International Trade committee  I think the long-term solution lies in an alternative system. Right now, suspending the TRIPS provisions in relation to COVID-19 products is the first step we must take to get out of this mess we're in, and the first step to come up with an alternative system for certain types of

International Trade committee  Thank you for asking such a great question. It's actually a huge problem right now, one that affects vaccines and patented drugs overall. Simply put, everything in the current marketplace is done under the table, through confidential agreements, and everyone is in on it. As an o

International Trade committee  That's a great question as well. Intellectual property and the private market are said to be the best mechanisms to advance science. Consider, though, the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, which decided to fully adopt open science to address rare diseases. The Structura

International Trade committee  I do not agree in the slightest. Canada and other countries do have production capacity. It's a complex endeavour when it comes to vaccines. On top of that, vaccines in this case use messenger RNA technology, so things get even more complex. Even with the formula to manufacture t

International Trade committee  Thank you. I wanted to point out that BioNTech developed the vaccine, and Pfizer went on to manufacture it. The University of Oxford developed the AstraZeneca vaccine. Initially, AstraZeneca was supposed to have a non-exclusive licence, but in the end, it became an exclusive lic

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. You must understand that, for a long time in Canada, public vaccine manufacturing capacity was very high. There's a significant difference between public and private production capacity. In the case of public production capacity, the public authoritie

International Trade committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the committee members for the opportunity to speak with them. My presentation will focus on intellectual property related to COVID-19 vaccines, along with ways to increase vaccine manufacturing in Canada and abroad. I'm an associate profe

Health committee  In terms of the development of vaccines in Canada, the main project we had in Canada was this partnership with the Chinese company. It didn't work. If you look at the global level—the contribution of different governments, basically—more than half of the contributions, in terms o