Industry Committee on Feb. 16th, 2021

[Brad Sorenson]

Quite frankly, I already have the discussions going on with the provinces. We're now filling orders. I would welcome support from the federal government and the NRC as we advance the clinical trial forward.

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

What about special help from Health Canada with regard to certification?

[Brad Sorenson]

We're not looking for any exceptions. We want to make sure this is done properly.

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

What about timelines, though? Are you worried about pedantry within the ministry or within the process, like roadblocks?

[Brad Sorenson]

I don't believe Health Canada functions that way. Our experiences with the bureaucratic functions of the federal government—NGen, NRC, Health Canada—have all been fantastic to date. We have no reason to believe that would not continue on a go-forward basis.

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

Good. What about resourcing?

[Brad Sorenson]

It would be important as Health Canada continues to review additional technologies—and not just Providence's—that they have the resources at their disposal to be able to review those technologies on a rolling basis.

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

That's what I was getting at. What kinds of improvements would you recommend to the committee so that we get to that point in a short period of time?

[Brad Sorenson]

Quite frankly, that's beyond my expertise to advise.

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

Great. Is there anybody you could point us to that the committee could bring on for that?

[Brad Sorenson]

I'll give that some consideration and provide some follow-up.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sorenson, if you do have some additional information you'd like to provide to us, please send it to the clerk so that he can circulate it to the members. Thank you.

With that, we now turn to MP Erskine-Smith.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I want to start with you, Mr. Gerdts. There have been significant investments to build up domestic manufacturing capacity. We won't see that turn into capacity in the short term, I don't think, but we will in the medium term, hopefully, including at your centre.

Do you have any other recommendations on what the government ought to be doing to make sure we are leaving no stone unturned and doing everything we can to ensure that we have that capacity going forward?

[Dr. Volker Gerdts]

There are a couple of recommendations. Number one, I think we need to invest in clinical trials for those candidates that are going forward right now. That includes our own candidate. We really didn't talk much about it. We're working on a protein vaccine here. We're at the same stage as Providence. It's critical for not only ours but also for these other vaccine companies that were mentioned earlier, the seven, to have a good path forward in terms of clinical development. Phase three trials are very, very expensive.

In the long term, though, I think what you're referring to is how we can better prepare for the future. It's critical that the government consider funding into these organizations and into these centres that are specifically focused on emerging diseases and can address emerging diseases affecting both humans and animals. We've talked a lot about human diseases today, but currently there are animal diseases circulating that represent a great threat to our livestock industries. This includes a disease called African swine fever.

We need to have departments in the country that are almost like fire departments, that are able to tackle immediately any emerging diseases. That means immediately. It doesn't mean start to hire people and train them and so on. Just to give you an idea, it takes about four to five months to get a person fully comfortable working in a high-containment lab with a potentially deadly virus. When a disease emerges, you don't want to start recruiting new people. You need to have them ready and in place.

Part of our strategy for the country needs to be investing in capacity, in building centres that are specifically focused on emerging diseases, and in continuing to fund them so that you have these people in place and you don't start looking for people or handing out money when a disease has emerged.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That all makes sense. I would add that we ought to think about pandemic risk as a matter of prevention also—outside of your area of expertise—as it relates to food system transformation and climate action. We should have a “one health” approach. The experts seem to be universal in calling for a one health approach, but governments haven't yet gotten there.

Mr. Gerdts, in terms of the current crisis we are living through and the continued development, I suppose, of vaccine technology, you talked about your own efforts. Mr. Sorenson talked about his efforts, yet there are candidates already with existing technology that we know work. Why would we not focus our efforts on domestic manufacturing and licensing of vaccines that have already been successful? Why reinvent the wheel here?

[Dr. Volker Gerdts]

It's because in the long term, that's the wrong strategy. In the long term, you want to build domestic capacity. You want to develop domestic expertise and manufacturing capacity. If you always rely on other countries, or companies from other countries, to sign a licence with you, you will always be in the position of competing with other countries for the same technology. This time—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I don't mean always. I just mean right now, in the crisis we're living through, but I do take your point.

[Dr. Volker Gerdts]

I think that's what the government is doing right now.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I suppose I mean in terms of building the supply here, but in relation to technology developed elsewhere.

[Dr. Volker Gerdts]

There's the Novavax deal that was signed by the facility in Montreal. They're doing already what you just said.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Right.

[Dr. Volker Gerdts]

As soon as our facility is up and running, we can do the same here.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Attaran, I wondered about that, because I take it that this was your point fundamentally. Your main recommendation, from what I understand from your writing...and I think you're too pointed at times, if I'm being honest with you. I took your recommendation to be that licensing ought to have occurred with, say, AstraZeneca, and that we could have, through NRC, been building that out.

I did put that question to the deputy minister as it relates to the U.K. He in fact pointed to pre-existing investments. I didn't know enough about this, so I went back and looked. In 2018 there was an investment of 66 million pounds into the U.K.'s first dedicated Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre, their first vaccine manufacturing research centre. Yes, we were behind the eight ball in some ways and were maybe ahead of the U.K. pre-2018, but did the 2018 investment change that?

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

That 2018 investment in the U.K. is the sort of thing we need to do in Canada, but it is not yet operational so it hasn't been a factor in this pandemic.