Industry Committee on Feb. 25th, 2021

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

I am involved in the sense that I participate in the meeting. I'm an active participant and I ask questions. I provide independent advice as well, in addition to the one that is part of the vaccine task force recommendations.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you.

I'll go back again to how my colleague was asking the question earlier in regard to timelines.

My concern is that we lost about three months in the whole process of securing vaccines. The government announced the deal with CanSino Biologics in May. Three days after the Prime Minister made his announcement on that, China began the process of backing out of that agreement. We did not find that out publicly until July. The task force did not meet until June and then the government announced its procurement of these vaccines in August.

From your standpoint, who was involved in the decision to engage CanSino Biologics?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify on CanSino. There's a narrative out there about us recommending that we go with CanSino. I want to clarify the collaboration between NRC and CanSino was a research agreement. At no point that we're aware of was there any decision or discussion about preferentially procuring the CanSino vaccine to Canadians or having it as our preferred option. At that stage, it was a collaboration to carry out early phases—phases one and two clinical trials—in Canada. That was completely separate from the vaccine task force studies of international and domestic vaccines.

The timelines of the vaccine task force were somewhat comparable to what happened in the U.K. We started looking at memberships, vetting participants and everything around the month of April or May. In terms of the official announcement, that's another matter. The U.K. vaccine task force was announced in the month of May, so the timelines are comparable, I would say.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

To your point, the recommendation of the task force for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines would have been made when?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

I don't remember exactly, but I think it was probably around the end of June when we had the scientists from Moderna and Pfizer present their results. It would be around that timeline. I can certainly send the specific dates of when they were studied later, if you wish.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Then again, we did not secure these vaccines until August, with an announcement. To my point, that wasted three months, which is the unfortunate part.

In January, Pfizer announced with its partner BioNTech that it was developing a booster shot to protect against the COVID variants. Just last week at the health committee, Dr. Roman Szumski mentioned that the current contracts that are in place do not reference the need for boosters and that those would be new conversations we would enter into with the suppliers.

Given this, is it important that we begin to engage now with firms, particularly these Canadian firms here today, including universities, to begin that process?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

It is my hope that the coming vaccines would be made in Canada.

Whether we're going to be needing booster shots has not been determined yet. There are studies that suggest it's not only the neutralizing antibodies that are important for the response, but there may be other non-neutralizing ones that are quite effective against the variants. We need more science to determine this. We may need the COVID vaccines for years to come, and I sure hope we'll be able to make them in Canada.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Lambropoulos.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to begin by thanking all our witnesses for taking the time to be here with us today to answer our questions, and for all their contributions to helping us get to the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least this phase we're in right now.

Dr. Nemer, thank you for being here and for everything you've done so far.

I know you had expressed concern with delaying the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, as you believe it could perhaps create or cause variants to occur or to appear. Do you still hold the same views, and have you recommended to the Government of Canada that it interfere with the provinces, such as the Province of Quebec, for example, where they are not necessarily following guidelines that have been offered by the pharmaceutical companies?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

I have been in regular contact with my counterpart in Quebec, Rémi Quirion, as well as the chief public health officers, and I've had direct conversations with them based on the science.

As was mentioned, in terms of the question about the first and second doses, I think there was never a question that the second dose would not be given. It was the delay.

We're seeing some studies coming out of Israel where they have vaccinated a large part of their population with the Pfizer vaccine. We have to be careful. It's not the same with all vaccines. The adenovirus phase and the RNA are very different. The studies show a partial response of between 50% and 70% with the Pfizer vaccine. The second dose is far more effective.

Until we have proper clinical trials carried out using acceptable standards of consent that have gone through ethics boards, I think we should stick with the clinical studies that were carried out.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

Recent studies in Europe or in the United States, I believe, have shown that a single dose for people who have already tested positive for COVID-19 may be sufficient against the virus. Do you plan a bit more research on this so you can perhaps recommend to the Government of Canada that one may be enough for those who have already tested positive for COVID-19 to help the process move a little more quickly?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

That's, of course, very interesting because the first dose of the vaccine in people who have been infected is the equivalent of the second dose in people who have never seen the virus. It is something that I actually looked into early on and had discussions about with modellers in Canada and in the U.S. as well. Because of the low rate of infection in Canada, it was deemed that such an approach, other than in settings like long-term care where we know who was infected and who wasn't, is actually quite cumbersome and not very efficient, given that less than 5% of the population has been infected in Canada.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

My final question would go to pretty much anybody who would like to answer it.

How do you think the Government of Canada can better support science research, and how can we better help it to materialize so that it benefits Canadians in circumstances such as the one we're living in right now?

[Dr. Gary Kobinger]

I would say that something that is missing and that would help tremendously is a follow-up on all the projects that are receiving funding. This would mean that the ones that are doing very well could get more support and the ones that are a bit delayed could be deprioritized. This was missing from the beginning, and it would be a strong improvement, from my perspective.

Thank you.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Booth, I see your hand up.

[Andrew Booth]

Yes, I'd love to make a quick comment on that.

I think, importantly, that it's what are the investments that we're making now in order to have the capabilities to respond to pandemics in the future? I think a great question by MP Lemire was about this. If the government had acted a bit more quickly, would we have domestic manufacturing capacity for these vaccines or therapeutics? I think the answer is no. These investments take years, if not decades, to make in order to ramp up the capabilities, in order to be able to have manufacturing capabilities for biologics, for vaccines, here in Canada. We have not made those kinds of investments over decades in order to have these capabilities. I think that's important to think about. As Dr. Nemer said, the innovation that has come out of Canada that enables these types of things has been remarkable, and we need to keep investing in that.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

We now go to Mr. Simard for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a question for Mr. Kobinger.

I listened to your opening remarks carefully. You were right to point out that the government's mistakes and failings had deadly consequences. As lawmakers, we must not forget that once the pandemic is behind us and it's time to dissect it all.

You said Canada's solution now relies on the NRC, a model that is not in place anywhere else in the world. From the research I've done, England and Germany seem to have the best models, which are based on co-development.

What's the best model to achieve results quickly, in the short term? In the long term, lessons may emerge in terms of how things were handled.

I'd like to hear your comments on that.

[Dr. Gary Kobinger]

It's an important question, so thank you.

One model that comes to mind is a partnership between industry, which is already well-equipped to overcome a number of challenges and push ahead with vaccine production, and any academic, government or other institution with the capacity to come up with new technologies. That's a model that would produce faster results.

Nevertheless, other models do exist, such as Brazil's Instituto Butantan. The way that model works, a non-profit organization is responsible for vaccine development and manufacturing. The funding comes from government institutions insofar as they purchase the vaccines produced by the institute. However, the institute is totally independent of the government. The model is in place in other countries as well, not just Brazil.

Everyone knows I'm outspoken. What I said was not meant as a criticism of the NRC. I was simply pointing out that the model was not one I had seen elsewhere, other than the countries I mentioned. When a federal government produces vaccine doses for its citizens, it will, of course, have numerous challenges to overcome.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I totally understand what you're saying.

Briefly, could you tell us what could be done—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Sorry, but your time is up. You may get a chance to ask your question during the next round.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Garrison.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to go back to something that Madam Nemer said, which was that she sure hoped that domestic production would be available.

Have you or the task force advised the government that creating that domestic production capacity is critical to the future health of Canada? Have you suggested that measures be taken to make sure that we have that domestic capacity?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

The short answer is yes. Advice has been given on this.

I understand that the industry, science, and innovation ministry is launching consultation on the biomanufacturing strategy for Canada.