Government Operations Committee on May 1st, 2020

[Pat Whalen]

Ours already started off fairly low, given the robustness of our existing infrastructure, so I would say they have not changed.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I really appreciate having you both on today. Thank you for providing your expertise.

My last question is this. Are you anticipating additional hires as you scale up? What does that look like?

[Pat Whalen]

We're looking at somewhere between 25 and 30 people over the next two or three months, and probably accelerating beyond that.

[Paul Lem]

Similarly for us, it will probably be 20 to 30 people in the next two months and then that contract manufacturing in Mississauga will probably mean several hundred people, and then we'll probably add another 200 or 300 people over the next several years.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Before we go to the next round, Mr. Whalen and Mr. Lem, I know you both indicated that you would have to be leaving at 12 noon. Is that still your plan or do you have an opportunity to stay slightly longer than that?

[Pat Whalen]

I could certainly extend by another 10 or 15 minutes if required, Mr. Chair.

[Paul Lem]

Unfortunately, I have a board meeting that starts right at 12, so I cannot extend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we will go on to our next round of five-minute interventions; however, we will not be able to conclude it. Mr. Whalen has indicated that he will stay for the second round, but we have to conclude at 12 noon to allow our next witness ample opportunity to present testimony and answer questions.

We will go to our second round of five-minute interventions, starting with Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Whalen and Mr. Lem. Those were beautiful presentations.

We have 36 million or 37 million Canadians, and we know this is an ongoing process. As long as we live, we're probably going to have to have that testing equipment.

What do you anticipate are the quantities needed to be able to serve Canada, at least for the time being, in terms of equipment and kits?

[Pat Whalen]

From the equipment side of things, as Dr. Lem pointed out, we certainly need to have equipment available that can go into more places than just large laboratory settings. That is something we're working on as well, having smaller-scale, multiple sample processing equipment that can go in different places like clinics and smaller hospitals, things of that nature.

As for the testing demand, yes, we need many, many more tests. There are different forms of tests. Dr. Lem and I are both focused on nucleic acid testing or RNA testing. There is other testing that has to do with serology that we will see coming on the market, but it still needs to go up by at least an order of magnitude, and that's what we are planning around in our—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Will you be able to provide specific quantities then? How many units are you looking for?

[Pat Whalen]

We are ramping up our production to be able to provide 20 million to 30 million tests per week. That's the number we're shooting for.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

What about Mr. Lem?

[Paul Lem]

We're ramping up our production to over 10 million tests per year, because we believe that in the foreseeable future we're going to be a complement to tests like Mr. Whalen's.

High-throughput testing will be done at the lab and then remote communities will be done with us.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

My understanding, Mr. Lem, is that most of your raw material needed to produce the equipment is from within Canada. That is good news.

Mr. Whalen, I understand that we don't have some of the chemicals in Canada. Why?

[Pat Whalen]

Well, there are certain chemicals that are shared between both what we do and what Dr. Lem does. We have similar base materials of very sophisticated enzymes and other base chemicals that are primarily manufactured in the United States.

With regard to why those have not been manufactured in Canada, I'm not the best person to speak to on that. I suspect it's because the border has been so open and fluid over the years that a domestic supply wasn't really necessary. There's such a large manufacturing...and it's all based in the United States that it was simply easier to get it there.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We know that when we're in a crisis such as the one we're going through right now, every country wants to look after its own citizens. We see what has happened with the 3M masks.

Do you know for sure that we don't have the ability to produce that chemical in Canada? Is that an area we need to explore further to make sure we can do it, that we can have self-sufficiency? When it comes to the lives of our people, I think we need to have that.

[Pat Whalen]

Yes, absolutely, and as I commented previously, we are already doing that.

The good news is that the capabilities are absolutely available here in Canada. It's simply a matter of putting the right people and the right equipment to bear on the right things, and we're going to be able to do it.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I have one final question.

For both companies, Spartan and LuminUltra, how are you doing on human resources? By the way, those are beautiful company names, both of them.

How are we doing on human resources? Do we have enough human resources in Canada to upscale the production and to be able to serve our markets?

[Paul Lem]

Thanks, Mr. Aboultaif.

One of the great advantages of Ottawa is that Ottawa is the global hub of excellence for point-of-care blood chemistry analyzers. There are two companies, Abbott i-STAT and Alere Epocal, which have generated billions of dollars in sales over the last decade. They have that deep personnel expertise we've been hiring from to complement our scale-up.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Whalen.

[Pat Whalen]

Speaking for Atlantic Canada, it is one of the best-kept secrets, of course, in that we have some of the friendliest and hardest-working people in North America, if not the world. We also have some of the smartest people in the world.

We believe we can scale up effectively through the population here in Atlantic Canada, as well as with Atlantic Canadians who would like to repatriate from other parts of the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Whalen and Mr. Lem.

We'll now go to Mr. Weiler, for five minutes, please.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Whalen and Mr. Lem, for joining our committee today.

Whereabouts throughout Canada are your tests going, by province?