Evidence of meeting #17 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vaccines.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
That will be disclosed in the coming 10 days.
Conservative
Tony Baldinelli Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Okay. Thank you for that.
I'd like to follow up with a question for Mr. Gerdts.
You indicated your vaccine production facility is slated to be operational in 2022, if that's correct. Is there anything that could have been done to speed up this process? Could more funding or an expedited certification process be used to support it?
Director and Chief Executive Officer, VIDO-InterVac
More funding at the moment wouldn't really have made much of a difference. We're hoping for an expedited certification and commissioning process. We're working on that right now with the regulators—to recognize that we are in a pandemic and that it's important to do this as quickly as possible without compromising on safety.
Conservative
Tony Baldinelli Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
If we had negotiated the right to manufacture vaccines like AstraZeneca in our contracts with them, would you have been able to manufacture them in your facilities?
Director and Chief Executive Officer, VIDO-InterVac
Yes. We would have been able to make all vaccine technologies with the exception of RNA or DNA vaccines.
Conservative
Tony Baldinelli Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Would it have taken you and your company an inordinate amount of time to scale up to do so?
Director and Chief Executive Officer, VIDO-InterVac
Just to clarify, we're a university. We're a public research organization here. It always takes some time to transfer the technology and adapt to a new facility, but as we heard earlier, our facility is using what is called single-use. Essentially what that means, to make it very simple, is that you have very large plastic bags that you put in these stainless steel bioreactors and it allows you to make a certain vaccine product, take the bag out, harvest the vaccine and in the meantime you can put a new bag in for a different kind of vaccine.
Our facility is designed to make different vaccine technologies in the same facility both for humans and animals.
Conservative
Tony Baldinelli Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
Thank you for that.
I have a quick question for Mr. Casey.
The government has recently updated the Pfizer labels to require six doses to be extracted. The problem is that it requires specialized syringes that are in short supply. Does Canada have the capacity to produce these syringes domestically?
President and Chief Executive Officer, BIOTECanada
That's beyond my expertise.
It points to the bigger question, though, in terms of fill and finish and distribution. Getting all those logistics in order is going to be absolutely critical. We can have the science, we can have the technology and we can develop the vaccines, but the ability to get it out and into arms is always going to be a fairly significant challenge, to try to put them into eight billion arms around the world.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you very much, Mr. Casey.
We now go to MP Jowhari.
You have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses. It's quite clear that we are all passionate about serving Canadians and quite proud to be Canadian.
Let me start with Providence and Mr. Sorenson.
Mr. Sorenson, in your opening remarks you talked about the fact that you were in a position to be able to design the vaccine in four weeks. Can you give us a timeline as to when that design was completed?
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
The design was completed in March of 2020.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I also understand, based on the comments you made, that you do have the capacity, or in early March you had the capacity, to be able to develop this vaccine. Is that correct?
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
That is correct. We had a GMP facility at Sunnybrook Research Institute.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Great.
Can you help us understand what transpired in the time between mid-March when you developed that vaccine to December 4, 2020, when you submitted your clinical application? Was there anything the Government of Canada could have done to be able to expedite that?
You would be a prime candidate, having developed a vaccine in less than four weeks, and then having the capacity to be part of the 76 companies or organizations that were evaluated.
Can you help us understand what happened during those times?
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
Certainly.
In the second half of April, we were formally invited by the strategic innovation fund to make an application for their review. We were told at that time that, of all of the applications, there would be a short list and that the short list would be contacted within a week, or two weeks tops, and then they would move forward with those that were short-listed.
We followed up in a week and we were told that they were still receiving applications. We followed up in another week and we were told that we would need to wait another two weeks. We followed up in two weeks and we were told that we needed to wait because they were structuring the vaccine task force and they needed to have the guidance of the vaccine task force before they could begin their work. We kept waiting throughout the entire summer—
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you for that, but from the point of development of the vaccine, you had the design, and in what you're trying to do, what would be the next step in that?
You have a formula, I believe you manufacture a batch, and then you start doing a clinical trial or animal trial. That's the path I'm really interested in to get an idea of what you went through.
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
Certainly.
We designed the vaccine. We took that vaccine into animal trials where we tested safety and we tested efficacy. We did two efficacy trials: one in mice and one in hamsters. We did a number of safety trials.
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
Certainly. We did an initial safety trial with the University of Toronto, and that would have been conducted in April. We published that data, I believe it was in June, and we did additional follow-up safety trials that summer with Charles River Laboratories in Quebec. In conjunction with the University of Toronto, we also did our efficacy trials over the summer in mice and in hamsters.
You asked if we could have done it more quickly with support. Yes, we could have done it more quickly with support. One of the biggest challenges we faced was that we were in lockdown and we had limited access to our own facilities because of the lockdown criteria and we could not be designated an essential service.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Had it not been in a lockdown and you had access to the facility, you could have shortened your test cycle, but when it opened up, you were approved. You made an application on December 4. It was approved on the 23rd. Then your first trial was on January 26.
In the last 15 seconds I have, can you give me your perspective of government response, at least Health Canada's response, in being able to get you where you need to be?
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
Health Canada has responded very quickly with regard to reviewing and giving us the authorization to proceed with our clinical trial.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you very much.
We now turn to MP Lemire.
You have the floor for two and a half minutes.