Health Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2021

[Dr. John Lewis]

Absolutely, hindsight is 20/20, but I think it's extremely clear that, if you look at success around the globe, decisive and upfront funding of multiple vaccine candidates all the way through to the end was key to both their success and their speed.

We talked a lot about being able to speed up clinical development. Previously, the average time for a vaccine to get from discovery to approval was over 10 years, and without compromising safety, we've been able to dramatically compress that time by spending money that's called “at risk” on multiple stages in parallel. I think this was absolutely required to get to the goal much more quickly, and I think in the future, not only can we....

I think we're missing commercial manufacturing capacity in Canada. We have the great seeds of that, and obviously investments have been made to improve that, but I think we can make much more substantial investments. This will then put the burden in the future really on discovery and clinical development, which I think requires upfront investment in multiple shots on goal to ensure that one of those shots gets in.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Dr. Kobinger, on February 16, the Quebec government stated that it intends to inject $2 million into the production of the vaccine developed by your team.

It is amazing that you received $1 million at the outset and still came up with some interesting results, and then were stonewalled by the federal government for further clinical research. What do you think this attitude of the federal government reflects?

[Dr. Gary Kobinger]

You point out opportunities where we could have done better, and this will be helpful in the future.

I think this indicates that a connection between the funded projects under development has been missing from the beginning. I am referring here to the models in Great Britain and the United States. It's no secret that in the case of projects that received a modest $1 million grant, for example, no one imagined that it would be possible to reach phase 3 of the study.

At present, there is no structure in place to provide more scientific support to particularly promising funded projects during their development and, if necessary, to put projects with more difficulties on hold. We know that funding is always limited, in the end. That's why Britain has decided to target the three most promising projects and to provide significant funding for each, in excess of $300 million if necessary. One of these projects produced a vaccine that is now licensed in more than 50 countries.

In Canada, the approach has been different. The money was kind of sprinkled around and there was no follow-up. I should point out that in our case, we are trying to develop a vaccine in a non-profit organization and 90% of the costs are cut. This vaccine is meant to be owned by Canadians, but there has been no follow-up. We also didn't have the same competitive opportunities because I was on the selection committee for the largest federal competition.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I have just a few seconds left. I will be able to address you in the second round since my questions are a little more elaborate.

From what I understand, there has been no comprehensive, proactive strategy to rally our strengths and increase the bioproduction strike force to make Canada independent in vaccine production. Right from the start, we dragged our feet, as in many other areas. I'll come back to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

We go now to MP Davies.

MP Davies, please go ahead for six minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Davies, last Thursday the co-chair of the federal vaccine task force, Mark Lievonen, told the industry committee that domestically producing and supplying a COVID-19 vaccine was never possible in Canada before the end of 2021. However, from March to August of 2020, both Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Navdeep Bains repeatedly set the expectation that Canada would be producing 250,000 doses per month by November 2020 at the NRC's Royalmount facility, and up to two million doses by the end of 2020. In fact, the Prime Minister sent out a press release on August 31 committing to that.

My question to you is this simple: In 2020 did or did not the NRC have the capacity to produce vaccines in Canada?

[Mitch Davies]

The human health therapeutics research centre in Royalmount has a pilot plant facility and has had that facility for many years. We can produce a vaccine product, but it requires a good manufacturing practices approval, Health Canada approval, for the facility. In the case of a specific vaccine candidate, it would have required an emergency authorization for the production of that candidate for human use.

In the case of the commitments and the statements made—the pilot-production level of production, which is the 200,000 doses—it was certainly the goal of the NRC to put in place the necessary procedures, processes and changes in our facility in order to accomplish that. Of course, we were targeting an international vaccine candidate. It's well known. It did not come into the facility. Therefore, without the product, you can't produce.

The facility is capable of a level of production that is in line with what's been said, but of course, by the time we reached the fall, we were dealing with a scenario where we had approved vaccines coming online. We had them starting to be distributed in December in Canada from approved vaccines that had, of course, advanced very rapidly internationally and that Canada, of course, had acquired—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Sorry, Mr. Davies, I have limited time. I don't need a long explanation of what happened. I asked you a very straightforward question. I'm taking from your answer that we did have the capacity in 2020.

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, the question of capacity and the question of authorization and being able to produce it for human use, those are two different questions.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

[Mitch Davies]

I just want to be very clear for Canadians that I'm not indicating that we had Health Canada approval. We did not have an emergency product approval in train at the time of the fall of 2020, and we were working in collaboration with other vaccine candidates in the country, but again, not producing for human use, working with VIDO-Intervac, for example, or VBI Vaccines [Inaudible-Editor] Canadians.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Davies, what would your explanation to Canadians be then for why the Prime Minister of Canada said on August 31 that we would be producing 250,000 doses of vaccine in November, which at the time he said it was about 60 days later.

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, the explanation is that, of course, the plan of the National Research Council was to position that facility for emergency use, and that's exactly what was occurring right through the fall period of 2020.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

[Mitch Davies]

As far as Health Canada approvals are concerned, as far as the circumstances of what products would come in to the facility are concerned, there would be no way to know precisely at the end of August exactly how it would turn out over the course of the fall. I would say that would explain the question of what ultimately took place at the NRC facility.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Perhaps the Prime Minister should have been a little less unequivocal, I would think, on August 31, based on your testimony.

Mr. Davies, Minister Anand also told the industry committee and this committee that she asked all seven vaccine manufacturers if they would produce vaccine in Canada. Were you part of any of those discussions?

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, at the time that discussions were taking place for vaccine acquisitions, I was not in the role of president of the National Research Council, although I can say that in the circumstances that the minister described, there was certainly discussion of whether the NRC could produce...a technology transfer could take place at the NRC, for example, for the AstraZeneca candidate, and also, of course, also with Novavax, which now of course has borne fruit into an MOU that we have now signed with Novavax. Those were definitely ongoing conversations.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

You've anticipated where I'm going, Mr. Davies. Minister Anand also said that AstraZeneca turned Canada down because Canada did not have the capacity to produce. Was that because the NRC facility had already been committed to the CanSino project? Is that why AstraZeneca identified a lack of capacity?

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, I think the direct answer is the one that the minister provided herself, which was that for a company such as AstraZeneca to undertake vaccine technology transfer to the NRC, to a pilot facility, was not considered to be viable or a project of interest for AstraZeneca because, of course, they were producing at large scale in other locations around the world. For example, they were working with the Serum Institute, which produces a billion vaccines every year. I think it's more of a question of whether it made sense for them commercially. Although we technically can obviously handle that kind of vaccine at the NRC facility, it's a question of whether that was going to be an opportunity that that company would offer to Canada.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I wanted to ask you about cell culture. In 2019, I understand the NRC had at least 500 litres of cell culture. That's more than twice as much as the U.K. had and they, of course, have developed domestic vaccine production. Does the NRC still have that 500 litres of cell culture and if so, is it being used?

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, as I indicated in my previous answer, the facility has a pilot capability, but again, it's not approved for human use. That facility, for example, has been used to provide vaccines for animal use before that have been commercialized. We obviously can use the facility to support production models and to help advance vaccine development, but whether or not Health Canada would allow that facility to be approved is a question for Health Canada to have to come to a conclusion on the facility itself and whether we meet all the standards.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I asked about the litres of cell culture.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

That brings round one to a close.

It looks like we would have time for a quick round two. I'm going to propose round two with four-minute slots for the main parties and two-minute slots for the NDP and the Bloc.

With that understanding, we will go ahead now. We'll go back to, I believe it is Ms. Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Dr. Kobinger, when you were on the vaccine task force, did you recommend that Canada pursue the CanSino agreement?

[Dr. Gary Kobinger]

Absolutely not. I actually voiced very strong concerns despite the fact that, to my surprise, this was officially the first recommendation of the committee. We've never really discussed it, so I don't know how it made it as a first recommendation.