My comments were based on the fact that we have had a two-supplier process in Canada for the regular seasonal vaccines since 1992, which predates GSK's involvement in this. I've been with Connaught for 30 years, so I remember this. In fact, Connaught was one of the ones that instigated and negotiated the two-supplier system because of the dangers inherent in having only one supplier.
This is a much trickier vaccine to produce on a seasonal basis than any other. The concerns are not only with the virus changing. What about the source of eggs, and what about viruses getting into the eggs or into the chickens? There are so many places for something to go wrong. At the time, in 1992, we suggested--and the government fully backed--the concept of having two suppliers for seasonal vaccine.
When we came to looking at a pandemic vaccine, another element was introduced in 2001. That was the concern about an embargo, a shortage worldwide of this pandemic vaccine. What if we couldn't get it in Canada? So we should have a company in Canada that makes the vaccine. As a result, all other manufacturers were excluded from participating in that contract.
While that may be a valid concern and may be the reason Canada did what it did, I find it hard to separate out the fact that having two suppliers is viewed as being very critical to security of supply on the regular seasonal vaccine and somehow isn't important when it comes to a pandemic. So our position, in terms of talking about safety of the Canadian population, was to talk about safety in respect to security of supply and the fact that Canada would benefit from having multiple suppliers--definitely have one that's manufacturing in Canada, but also add on one that has manufacturing capability outside of Canada and other capabilities inside. For example, our plant in Toronto is labelling and packaging flu vaccine for the U.S. market as we speak. We have the capacity to do that kind of work in Toronto, even though we do not make the box. And we have the capacity to fill vaccine in Toronto.
I'm just saying there's more to this vaccine than what we have with other vaccines, and from a strategic position, we feel Canada would be well served to have two suppliers.