Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would also like to thank the witnesses for being here today and for sharing their informative comments with us.
Mr. Gagnon, I'd like to begin with a question that has already drawn your attention, and the attention of one of the witnesses we heard earlier, a representative of Doctors Without Borders.
My question is about the grants that would have been required, and paid for by Canada, for the development of lipid nanoparticle technology, and created by spinoff companies from the University of British Columbia.
In that event, I'd like to quote the following: "If most of the funding for designing vaccines comes from public sources, and the price includes a premium for patents, are we not paying for the vaccine twice?"
That's a question I raised with the president of AstraZeneca at a meeting held on April 25. I asked her whether AstraZeneca had supplied its vaccine in quantities equal to the grants paid, and had decided to make the vaccine profitable only once the grants had been repaid. I was not really given a proper answer to the question. I was rather told that they were continuing to give the vaccine to developing countries, but charging for it in developed countries in order to make it somewhat profitable.
What do you think about this response from AstraZeneca?
What do you think about the possibility that we could have also funded research and development into lipid nanoparticle vaccines?