Industry Committee on Feb. 25th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

I now call this meeting to order. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 20 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will only show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee. To ensure an orderly meeting, I'll outline the usual rules.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of “floor”, “English” or “French”. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you're on video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute your mike. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

As a reminder, all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. As is my normal practice, I will hold up the yellow card for when you have 30 seconds remaining and the red card for when the time for your intervention has expired.

We have a very full agenda this morning and I understand two witness groups have to leave at noon. Therefore, I'm going to ask you to please respect the time so that everyone can get a turn.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, the committee is meeting today to study the domestic manufacturing capacity for a COVID-19 vaccine.

I now welcome our witnesses. Today, we have Dr. Mona Nemer, who is the chief science adviser; Brian Lichty, an associate professor at McMaster University; Karen Mossman, vice-president of research at McMaster University; from Precision NanoSystems, James Taylor, CEO, and Andrew Booth, chairman; from Medicago, Takashi Nagao, president and CEO, and Nicolas Petit, vice-president of commercial operations; and Dr. Gary Kobinger, of Université Laval.

Each witness will present for up to seven minutes, followed by a round of questions.

We will start with Dr. Nemer.

You have seven minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Yes, Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I just want to know which of the witnesses would only be here for the one hour, so that we could look at our questions in that manner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Absolutely. Thank you.

Dr. Nemer has to leave at noon, as does Medicago.

Dr. Nemer, you have the floor for seven minutes.

[Dr. Mona Nemer, Chief Science Advisor, Office of the Chief Science Advisor]

Thank you very much.

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Since my last appearance before this committee, in December 2017, I have fulfilled my first mandate and was subsequently reappointed for a two-year term in September 2020.

In the interest of time, I will not go into the details of my mandate, but as a science adviser to the Prime Minister and cabinet, I will say that the past year has been largely devoted to advice related to the COVID-19 health crisis.

Of course, the pandemic is an extremely complex situation with numerous facets. It's all the more challenging when it's due to a new virus about which we know very little, which is why in order to help inform my advice I established a multidisciplinary scientific advisory group early on. We focus on areas ranging from COVID-19 diagnostics and research needs to aerosol transmission, infection in children and long-term care settings.

Researchers were mobilized and willing to generously share their findings and advice. As a result, science has guided decision-making in real time like I have never seen before. The COVID-19 expert panel, made up of distinguished researchers and practitioners in infectious disease, disease modelling and behavioural sciences from across the country, held its first meeting on March 10. It has met since more than 40 times, and panel members also participated in several targeted task forces to which additional experts contributed. This ensured a coordinated and integrated science advice mechanism. Throughout, an impressive number of scientists and health practitioners have generously contributed their time and expertise for the service of their country.

My office also helped set up CanCOVID to stimulate COVID-19 research and partnerships. The network boasts over 3,000 members across the country and has been very successful in fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation.

In addition to domestic outreach, I have been in regular communication with my international counterparts. We share information on disease spread and containment, knowledge gaps, research activities and priorities, as well as clinical studies. This has kept us all up to date on the latest developments worldwide.

Early in the pandemic several clinical studies aimed at treating or preventing COVID-19 and its complications using existing drugs got under way, but the results were mostly disappointing. Attention increasingly focused on vaccine development for disease prevention.

In Canada, federal funds were allocated as early as March and April 2020 for vaccine and therapeutic developments through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

COVID-19 vaccine development, manufacturing and distribution were topics I discussed extensively with my international counterparts, including those in the U.K. and the U.S. It became evident to me that independent expert advice on vaccine development and procurement was needed, which is why I recommended the creation of the vaccine task force.

Made up of 11 members of Canada's vaccine research community and four ex officio members, of which I am one, the task force has been instrumental in helping to identify and prioritize vaccine candidates, support domestic vaccine development, and inform supply chain coordination.

I have participated in the vast majority of the task force meetings, and I have always been completely satisfied with the scientific rigour that framed their deliberations. Like so many others in Canada's scientific community, these researchers were ready and willing to step up and contribute pro bono their time and expertise to helping fight this health crisis. As a result, Canada now has a diverse portfolio of the leading effective vaccines from three different technologies. I believe that Canadians have been well served by this remarkable group.

The only downside to the amazing feat of the development of vaccines against COVID-19 is that the first of these vaccines came from outside the country. The fact that Canada has modest human vaccine production capabilities is not news; it's a problem that has existed for nearly four decades. As a scientist, I have spent most of my career in biopharmaceutical research, and sadly, I have witnessed the decline of our country's therapeutic development capacity over much of that time.

It does not have to be this way. Therapeutic development, whether vaccines or drugs, is a lengthy and complex process requiring dynamic collaboration among researchers, clinicians, government and private sector organizations. The rewards, as seen in this pandemic, are well worth the efforts.

Canada has exquisite assets to support a thriving biomanufacturing ecosystem from world-renowned scientists who continue to make critical discoveries in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences to innovative SMEs with promising products. But taking a discovery from the lab to the community or scaling up drug and vaccine production for human use is not a trivial undertaking.

It is my hope that the health needs and science successes witnessed during this pandemic will encourage us to put in place the resources and infrastructure to take our discoveries into innovative health products manufactured in Canada for Canadians, but also for the world.

Building our biomanufacturing capacity will not happen overnight, but it is vital that we work towards it, and now is the time to establish the strategies and act on them.

Science gave us hope and the tools to overcome this crisis, from diagnostics to vaccines and therapeutics. We in Canada have much to offer to fight this and future health threats. I look forward to the extraordinary opportunities that lie ahead.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

I now invite McMaster University to present.

You have seven minutes.

[Dr. Karen Mossman, Vice-President, Research, McMaster University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank all of you for inviting me and my colleague, Dr. Brian Lichty, to appear today to discuss domestic manufacturing capacity for a COVID-19 vaccine.

My name is Dr. Karen Mossman, and I am the vice-president for research at McMaster University. I'm also a professor in medicine and a virologist by training.

Very early on, my team was involved in isolating SARS-CoV-2, the agent responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19. Isolating and propagating the virus has enabled researchers across Canada and the world to better understand the virus and work on potential solutions.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Pardon me, Madam Chair, but the interpretation has stopped.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Dr. Mossman, would you double check what language you are on at the bottom of your screen? We're having some trouble with translation.

[Dr. Karen Mossman]

I have English selected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Perfect.

Mr. Simard, I'm speaking in English. Are you getting it in French? Yes. Perfect.

Please go ahead, Dr. Mossman.

[Dr. Karen Mossman]

At McMaster, our researchers pivoted quickly to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with most of the research coming from the newly launched Canada's Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats. This includes working on the development of home test kits, leading a national trial for plasma transfusion, and leading a trial on anti-coronavirus therapies.

A great deal of work is being done across the university to innovate respiratory ventilators and N95 masks. Thanks to funding from CIHR and CFI, my own lab is currently studying SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis.

This pandemic has exposed significant gaps in Canada's domestic biomanufacturing capacity. While important steps are being taken to correct this imbalance in the future, we believe action can be taken now to ensure that Canada can produce its own vaccines without the need to solely rely on international partners.

McMaster is home to the Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Laboratory. Founded 17 years ago, this biomanufacturing facility is currently producing a made-in-Canada COVID-19 vaccine which, pending approval, will be ready for clinical trials in the spring. This second-generation vaccine candidate has been designed to provide broader anti-coronavirus immunity to aid in protection against the variants and potential future pandemic coronaviruses. The research into this vaccine candidate is Canadian, the IP is Canadian, and we hope that production will be Canadian.

Investment will be key to growing Canada's vaccine manufacturing capacity. McMaster's facility could and should play a role in Canada's biomanufacturing future. With support, the facility could be upgraded in a matter of months to produce on the order of a million doses of the vaccine per production run.

McMaster University has recently partnered with the University of Saskatchewan and VIDO-InterVac to approach pandemic preparedness from a position of strength. Together we urge the government to invest in our proposals, which build on decades of excellence in infectious disease research.

I will now pass it over to my colleague, Dr. Brian Lichty, who is the director of the Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Laboratory. He can speak more to the work being done there.

[Dr. Brian Lichty, Associate Professor, McMaster University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to address this committee.

The Robert E. Fitzhenry vector facility is designed to produce adenoviral vectored vaccines. These will be similar to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, and actually the CanSino and Sputnik vaccines, for example.

McMaster pioneered the genetic engineering of adenoviral vaccine vectors decades ago, and all such vaccines are essentially based on Canadian technologies that were initially developed at McMaster.

The facility was originally designed to produce vaccines for phase one/two testing, and in the past has manufactured vaccines for infectious disease and oncology clinical trials in humans as well as veterinary trials in oncology. This work has allowed McMaster to license technology to industry and recently to spin out a biotech company that now employs over 60 scientists and technical staff in Ontario.

Our team is currently manufacturing two second-generation adenoviral vectored COVID vaccines designed to provide a broader immunity against three SARS-CoV-2 proteins. This design is expected to provide immunity to vaccinees against components that are less able to change and are conserved across the arising variants and even potential pandemic coronaviral species that are present in Asian bat populations.

McMaster has also pioneered methods to administer these vaccines through inhalation using a device analogous to a puffer. This would boost immunity within the lung where it is needed most. Importantly, this route of administration allows for a much lower dose of vaccine to be effective. Our planned trial will incorporate this route of administration.

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude for the rapid response to COVID-19 from the government and all parties. A robust domestic manufacturing capacity for vaccines is pivotal for Canada not only to ensure Canadians have timely access to lifesaving vaccines, but also from an IP, innovation and national security point of view. We have a great foundation for domestic manufacturing capacity in Canada and we see a path forward to creating a dynamic ecosystem.

McMaster has initiated conversations with NRC about the new Royalmount facility, and we see a tremendous opportunity for small academic facilities like ourselves to position ourselves better as feeder facilities for these larger biomanufacturing centres. This would allow the future Canadian ecosystem to be nimble and better poised to develop and test new technologies. Decisions made in the near future will determine whether this capacity will meet the needs of future pandemics, or if we will continue to rely on our international partners.

I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

I now turn to Precision NanoSystems.

You have seven minutes.

[Andrew Booth, Chairman, Precision NanoSystems]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I’ll begin by acknowledging that I am speaking on the traditional territory of the Squamish Nation, right here in Squamish, British Columbia.

As chairman of Vancouver-based Precision NanoSystems, I welcome the opportunity to update the honourable members on the contributions Precision and the broader domestic biotech industry have made to keep Canadians safe during the pandemic.

We're proud that our work is unlocking the potential of Canadian science and innovation. The domestic biotech and life sciences sectors are leading the development of some of the world’s most innovative treatments for rare disease, infectious disease and cancer. This life-saving work is being done by the world-leading talent we have here in Canada.

Canadian biotech and life sciences companies will play a vital role in rebuilding the economy post-COVID-19 by creating IP-intensive, knowledge-based jobs and attracting the brightest talents from around the world. Our industry allows Canadian students and young aspiring scientists to realize their potential here in Canada.

Canadian innovators are very strong. Many of the innovations that are now allowing us to prevent and treat COVID-19 come from Canadian companies. As we enter this critical period of economic recovery, we must support the homegrown Canadian firms to scale and develop the technologies and solutions to solve current and future health challenges.

Investing in domestic biomanufacturing capacity is certainly part of the solution. This is an area in which the government and industry can work together to support domestic firms in developing their technologies for the benefit of all Canadians and, frankly speaking, for the entire world.

We are pleased to see the government begin to chart the long-term vision of domestic biomanufacturing in partnership with the private sector. By making these investments, we will create high-value, sustainable economic activity and build the capabilities and competences to be prepared for the future.

The question is not whether another pandemic will descend on the world. The question is when it is going to happen, and we need to be prepared for it. We need to be strategic in our planning, because the decisions we make today will save lives in the future.

My colleague James Taylor will further expand on this. I thank all the honourable members for the opportunity to address you today.

[Dr. James Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, Precision NanoSystems]

Good morning, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the committee for inviting me to speak about this important and very timely topic.

I understand that you've been fortunate to hear from many of my colleagues about the tremendous efforts currently being done collaboratively in Canada by government, academia and industry to provide solutions today and better prepare us for all future pandemics. I hope my testimony today offers additional insight.

Precision NanoSystems' mission is to accelerate the creation of transformative medicines that significantly impact human well-being. We work with the world's leading pharmaceutical companies to create the drugs of the future, namely, genetic medicines: the delivery of RNA and DNA to cells to treat disease.

As therapeutics, genetic medicines treat disease at its fundamental molecular root cause and, as vaccines, they are used to teach the immune system to protect us from a given pathogen. We are proud to provide manufacturing technologies, drug technologies and services to enable genetic medicines to be developed to prevent and treat diseases, including cancer, rare diseases, infectious diseases and many more indications of high unmet medical needs.

We founded Precision NanoSystems 10 years ago as a spinoff from the University of British Columbia, with the goal of enabling the promise of genetic medicines. We now support hundreds of the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies to create these transformative medicines. We are proud to have built a highly talented and rapidly growing team of over 120 and to have played an important role in training a diversified workforce in Canada and institutionalizing Canada's strong life science commitment to its citizens.

COVID-19 has been devastating for individuals and the world. We should anticipate future pandemics and epidemics and prepare accordingly. We believe it is essential for Canada to secure and invest in a variety of vaccine technologies, including RNA vaccines, viral-based vaccines, protein subunit vaccines and others. This is prudent for many reasons. Notably, the world has seen RNA medicines' disruptive capabilities and how they could rapidly be developed and deployed against COVID-19, illustrating the power of genetic medicines. We see similar medical disruptions by genetic medicines across all major disease classes.

Genetic medicines really represent a unique opportunity for Canada. They represent one of the fastest-growing areas of pharmaceuticals, and Canada is a leader in many aspects of these technologies. Here in Vancouver, for example, is a world-leading centre for technologies that deliver RNA and DNA, with an expanding ecosystem consisting of local innovators and branches of large multinationals.

Precision NanoSystems provides game-changing solutions for drugs being developed in areas of high unmet medical needs, such as cancer, rare diseases and infectious diseases. We are proud to have collaborated with or provided solutions to companies, academic institutions and not-for-profit agencies in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

To solve major challenges like COVID-19, we believe that strong partnerships are required between the public and private sectors. With the Government of Canada's support, we have embarked on two key initiatives: the development of a differentiated COVID-19 vaccine and the opening of a biomanufacturing centre to create domestic production capacity.

Our COVID-19 vaccine program aims to develop a self-amplifying RNA vaccine, which, if successful, can potentially be dosed 20 to100 times lower than the messenger RNA vaccines currently authorized today under emergency use. By its nature, this will reduce manufacturing bottlenecks, as less material is needed per dose, allowing more people to access vaccines in a shorter time. Also, the smaller dose may decrease adverse effects. We aim to enter an adaptive phase one/two clinical trial by this summer and to be completed by the end of this year.

Our genetic medicine biomanufacturing centre will be a state-of-the-art facility for developing and manufacturing genetic therapeutics and vaccines. The biomanufacturing centre will support PNI's COVID-19 vaccine program, as well as PNI's large and growing client programs in other areas of high unmet medical need.

Successful completion of this facility will produce some of the world's most innovative genetic medicines right here in Canada. We are fostering local technology development, job creation and talent development and rebuilding our ability to respond domestically to future pandemics. Leveraging our existing relationships and pipeline of programs, the biomanufacturing centre will be a state-of-the-art, commercially viable facility for the most innovative genetic medicines produced here in Canada for years.

Lastly, I would like to recognize and thank the government employees who have worked with us recently and over the years. Our team has interacted with many individuals who have worked tirelessly and with the utmost commitment to enable these and other important projects.

Thank you. I'm available to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

I now invite Medicago to present.

You have up to seven minutes.

[Takashi Nagao, President and Chief Executive Officer, Medicago Inc.]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and members of the committee.

I will be speaking English.

On behalf of Medicago, I would like to thank you for inviting us to present at this hearing.

Medicago is a Canadian biopharmaceutical company with a mission to improve health outcomes of people by using our innovative plant-based protein expression technologies for rapid response to the emerging global health threats, such as one that we are facing today with COVID-19.

We are proud to be contributing to the fight against COVID-19 by developing a made-in-Canada vaccine candidate, which is currently in development in the phase two/three program. We are a proud Canadian company, headquartered in Quebec City, making a significant contribution to jobs and investment in the national economy.

Let me spend a moment to introduce our technology and its uniqueness. Our vaccines are so-called virus-like particles, or VLPs, which mimic the shape and appearance of the virus without being pathogenic. Because of this feature, it induces a very strong and broad protection through the immune system when it's introduced. Also, our plant-based production capability is extremely versatile and positioned to support rapid response to the situation we are facing.

With our capability and platform, we can receive the genetic sequence information of the virus, which is applied to express the VLP vaccine candidate for rapid development. That would be suitable to the situation like the pandemic we are facing.

We are currently assessing the immune response of our current program against the Wuhan strain and against emerging new variants. We are contemplating developing a new vaccine against the emerging new variants as well.

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, Medicago has reallocated nearly all of its resources to developing a vaccine candidate and variants and has also tried to accelerate our path to increase Canada's domestic vaccine manufacturing capabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical need for domestic manufacturing of vaccines and other products to ensure that Canada is prepared to protect its citizens from emerging infectious disease. Medicago is proud to provide domestic solutions—

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Pardon me, Madam Chair, but it might be a good idea to ask the witness to bring his mike closer to his mouth to improve the sound quality for the interpreter.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Mr. Nagao, could you lift your microphone a little higher, so that it's closer to your mouth?

[Takashi Nagao]

Is this better?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

[Takashi Nagao]

Medicago is proud to provide a domestic solution to respond to the pandemic, which will require support from the government at multiple levels.

We have seen other jurisdictions, such as the U.S., U.K. and Germany, investing in local companies to provide domestic capacity in their countries. The Government of Canada has kindly supported our efforts at Medicago in the development and production of COVID-19 vaccines. It will ensure availability of a Canadian-made vaccine to the population and provide much-needed domestic manufacturing capacity for vaccines, antibodies and other immunotherapies.

In addition, Canada's advance purchase order of our vaccine has allowed us to reserve supplies for Canada, and it provides the security needed for us to pivot resources from other programs and focus on COVID-19 vaccine development and production.

As we look at the critical factors involved in preparing for the pandemic, it may be useful to structure our response according to the three major axes: time, economics and competencies. Pandemic response requires long-term planning given that many years of efforts are needed. Private-public partnership provides strong synergies. While Canada needs to secure technology and domestic production capabilities, industry requires long-term sustainability to encourage significant private investment.

Competencies are also critical to ensure the domestic response, from the early research to the critical development, production and distribution. The government approach to investment should be focused on strengthening each link of this value chain with strong, long-term planning and commitment.

Last, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the government leaders and partners who made this investment possible, the Government of Canada, specifically the Public Health Agency of Canada; Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and the Government of Quebec. We are very grateful for your support and look forward to continuing to work with government partners to protect Canadians from the current COVID-19 outbreak and future public emergencies.

I'd be happy to entertain any questions. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

We will now go to Dr. Kobinger.

You have seven minutes.