Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for your invitation to Sanofi Pasteur to be at your proceedings today. I am honoured to represent the 1,100 employees of Sanofi Pasteur who research, develop, and manufacture vaccines in Canada.
Our company's commitment to public health dates back to 1914 in this country. As Connaught Laboratories, a name many of you may remember, our company has played an integral role in many Canadian breakthroughs, including the first production of insulin in 1921, a significant role in the development of Salk vaccine during the outbreaks and epidemics of the mid-1950s, and in the global eradication of smallpox.
Our experience over the years with public health threats suggests the key to dealing with infectious disease threats is collaboration, and it's collaboration among governments, industry, non-governmental organizations, and academia. And having world-class facilities located in this country enhances the ability of this government to collaborate.
We are now part of the sanofi-aventis Group, a global pharmaceutical company with leadership in vaccines. Our Connaught campus in Toronto develops and manufactures vaccines for Canadians and the world. Each year we invest approximately $100 million in vaccine R and D alone, and a total of $200 million in research in Canada, making us one of the largest investors in research in this country.
Sanofi Pasteur's Connaught campus in Toronto currently manufactures 10 vaccines, all of which were researched and developed right here in this country. The Toronto site has a global mandate for these products and exports close to half a billion dollars' worth of vaccine each year. Sanofi Pasteur has invested over $350 million dollars in its production and R and D facilities at the Toronto campus in the last decade, and this includes a new $100 million R and D facility, which is under construction as we speak.
I appreciate your calling on Sanofi Pasteur's knowledge of immunization and vaccines in your committee's research and I would like to acknowledge, on behalf of Sanofi Pasteur, the successful milestone announced last week by the Canadian government and GlaxoSmithKline. The successful regulatory release in Canada of the first lots of pandemic H1N1 vaccine is a significant step forward in providing Canadians with protection from the H1N1 virus, which is currently circulating in this country.
Sanofi Pasteur is the world's largest influenza vaccine manufacturer, producing an estimated 40% of the total world demand for seasonal flu vaccine at our facilities in the U.S. and in France. We are playing a lead role as a pandemic supplier in the U.S. and many European countries and have committed to donating 100 million doses of H1N1 vaccine to the WHO for emergency use in developing countries. Our company is not currently supplying pandemic vaccine in Canada, although we have supplied annual inter-pandemic vaccines for decades.
Influenza vaccine is unlike other products our company makes. It is the only vaccine that changes every year in response to changes in the circulating virus. Some influenza strains are much harder to produce than others. Unpredictability in both the capacity and the timing of influenza vaccine supply from year to year and manufacturer to manufacturer is part of the nature of making influenza vaccine.
Because new vaccine production adaptations and strain formulation must be undertaken each year to meet the needs of regular annual influenza programs, influenza vaccine supply has a greater degree of unpredictability than the supply of any other vaccine. For this reason, our company has always advocated having two sources of supply of influenza vaccine to ensure production back-up capacity should one supplier experience production delays or difficulties and to ensure delivery of initial doses of vaccine in a timely manner to maximize program effectiveness.
Having access to more than one source of supply can likewise be important in a pandemic situation. Canada has chosen to focus on a single Canadian supplier of pandemic vaccine as a means of enhancing security of vaccine supply during a pandemic. Canada should also consider having a second supplier, with global expertise and capacity for influenza vaccine manufacturing outside of Canada, with a strong manufacturing, filling and packaging capacity inside Canada. This would provide Canada with the best of both worlds and would maximize pandemic vaccine security of supply. Strong public health policy for immunization in general should recognize the critical strategic importance of its Canadian-based manufacturers to the safety and security of its people when it comes to disease prevention and secure access to vaccines.
According to the WHO, existing and emerging infectious diseases are a threat to national and global security. Canadian policies that foster an environment that strengthens Canadian vaccine innovation and encourages investment in vaccine manufacturing capacity in Canada will go a long way to increasing the safety and security of its people by ensuring timely access to vaccines against existing and emerging diseases.
Thank you very much. I'd be pleased to respond to any questions you may have about Sanofi Pasteur's operations.