Thank you to my colleague Maria for the opportunity to intervene and present the way NRC collaborates with the industry.
NRC has a long history of collaboration in the area of vaccines and biologics development with Canadian industry and, where appropriate, with others. We continually do this by partnering and identifying opportunities across the continuum of what we need to do to support the pipeline development and movement of R and D from early-stage, preclinical work to the later stages. With the new production facilities we will have in the biologics manufacturing centre and, in the future, the ability to make clinical trial material, we will be able to provide end-to-end support to the Canadian industry for advancing the pipeline.
During the pandemic, we demonstrated that. Very early on in the pandemic, we worked with a number of Canadian industries, for example, supporting the preclinical work necessary to advance to clinical trial for VIDO's COVID-19 vaccine candidate, as well as working with VBI Vaccines Inc., another Canada-based R and D unit and company, to advance its COVID-19 vaccine to clinical trials. As well, our industrial research assistance program has supported many.