International Trade Committee on April 19th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Professor. My apologies for interrupting.

We will move to Mr. Blaikie for two and a half minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Gagnon, when we talk about what's being proposed, which is a temporary and targeted waiver in the TRIPS provisions at the WTO, it often sounds as though some witnesses at committee imply that the governments who are asking for this waiver don't understand the complexities of vaccine production.

We hear a lot about the importance of the privacy of commercial agreements from companies that are producing vaccine. Then, with respect to the waiver, we're told, oh well, governments should be disclosing which companies in their domestic jurisdictions might be able to produce vaccines, and on what terms, if they had an IP waiver.

Is it normal that governments would expend so much time, energy and effort asking for an IP waiver if they didn't believe there was untapped domestic capacity that could actually produce more vaccines?

It's almost as if we're supposed to believe that this is some sort of political hobby horse side project that governments in the middle of a crisis have decided to take on—that either they don't believe this would produce any results or they don't understand the industry well enough and aren't talking to industry players at home.

Is it plausible that they would be spending this much time and energy on something that has no promise of increasing the vaccine supply?

[Dr. Marc-André Gagnon]

Contrary to Moderna, this is not just a PR exercise. There is real, untapped vaccine manufacturing capacity that does exist, that is not being used fully, and the WHO also agrees with that statement.

What do we do now? It's there, and we're putting in place obstacles in order to make sure we're not using it.

Keep in mind that there's this idea that we're going to get everybody vaccinated and everything will be over. No. We might have to renew vaccinations. There might be new variations of the virus that will emerge as well. We're in this for a very long ride. Let's focus on five or six companies and knock on their doors every six months in order to have new doses.

This is not the way to deal with a global emergency in terms of public health.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Professor.

I'm sorry, Mr. Blaikie, your time is up.

We will move to Mrs. Gray, for five minutes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today.

I'd like to go to Mr. Sorenson from Providence Therapeutics first.

Many people would be shocked to hear that as a Canadian company, you've received serious inquiries from other countries for vaccine procurement, but not from within Canada, with the exception of Manitoba.

You had mentioned that you're interested in not only producing mRNA vaccines for Canada but also in exporting them, including to developing countries in need. You mentioned in your testimony the company Genevant, which you said “is being infringed upon and not protected.”

Can you explain what you meant by that?

[Brad Sorenson]

Genevant, prior to being Genevant, was a company called Arbutus, which prior to that was a company called Tekmira. Many of you may remember Tekmira from the Ebola crisis in Africa. Tekmira was at the forefront in Canadian papers a lot. It was another company prior to that.

The group that's in Vancouver that is currently Genevant has been there for probably 20 years. It holds all of the foundational intellectual property related to lipid nanoparticles that are used to delivery mRNA medicines. It has successfully defended itself against Alnylam, Acuitas and Moderna in the past, and multiple other companies. It is now a private company. It has gone through a few different iterations, but it holds that foundational technology. We've licenced that from Genevant.

I won't speak out of turn about the company. You can approach it and talk to it. It's pretty clear that its technology is not being respected throughout the international community, particularly by those that are currently making billions of dollars selling mRNA vaccines.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

You mentioned that Canada paid $8 billion for COVID vaccines. Would you say that Canada would better secure our future by having investments in domestic capacity to produce mRNA vaccines versus having to rely solely on imports of vaccines subject to potential export control measures at present, and also taking vaccines from COVAX that are potentially better suited for developing countries?

[Brad Sorenson]

Well, all I can point out is that mRNA vaccines, as has been mentioned by this committee, are the more expensive vaccines, and there's a reason for that. It's because it's a quality issue. You have the CEO of Pfizer indicating that prices of vaccines are going to go up, not down.

To answer Daniel's earlier question on how much profit is being made here, I can tell you—we're an open book—that it costs us about $5 Canadian to make a dose, and we're using third party support right now. Once we have it integrated in Canada, the price to make the vaccine will go down even further, so you guys can do your own math.

With regard to large pharma, large pharma hasn't supported anybody in this besides themselves. J&J got a billion dollars from the U.S. government—a billion—and when they had their vaccine approved, they had five million doses ready for distribution. If I had a billion dollars.... I just can't comprehend how that happens, how the largest pharmaceutical company in the world can get a billion dollars free and have just five million doses ready for distribution.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Okay.

I have limited time here, so I want to quickly ask about another couple of things.

As you're getting ready to manufacture here at home, once your operation is scaled up, how many vaccines would your facility or facilities be able to produce on a monthly basis, or weekly, or yearly? What kinds of numbers are you looking at?

[Brad Sorenson]

At the Emergent facility in Winnipeg, we have a dedicated line within the facility. and with some very modest upgrades, about five million dollars' worth of upgrades, we could do 200 million doses a year.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I have one other quick question. I think I have time for one more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 20 seconds.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Do you see that your vaccines might potentially be available to low- or middle-income countries?

[Brad Sorenson]

That's what I'm focused on right now.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

That's great.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll go on to Ms. Bendayan for five minutes, please.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. With your permission, I will continue with my previous line of questioning with Mr. Agnew.

Mr. Agnew, I'm picking up on something that another colleague on the committee mentioned earlier with respect to the current third wave that we are in. Of course, I am extremely concerned about the situation, particularly in Ontario right now, as I'm sure all of my colleagues are, but linking vaccines to the third wave is in some ways simplifying a very complex issue.

We see countries around the world, such as Chile, that have had an extraordinary vaccine rollout and are also in a third wave. We also see the situation that Canada is in. We are currently number two in terms of vaccinations per day per capita in the world, and among G20 countries I believe we are third overall, behind the U.K. and the United States, which is quite good company.

We are very much committed as a government to continue moving vaccinations forward as quickly as possible, but there are, of course, a number of different situations and complexities at play when it comes to the third wave and the reasons for it.

I guess I would ask you, Mr. Agnew, if you feel that our business community in particular is engaged on this issue. Is there anything that you think the government could be doing, including, of course, support for vaccines to continue to enter the country? Is there anything that is missing from our strategy at present, Mr. Agnew?

[Mark Agnew]

Thanks for the question.

There are a couple of things that come to mind. Foremost is that businesses are looking for clarity, particularly around what variants of concern mean for their operations. We're seeing in other countries that mask mandates are shifting in terms of the types of masks that people should be using. That would be one thing that I would say. As vaccination rates increase, there are also a lot of questions around what I as a Canadian can do once I've gotten my first or second dose, so I think we need that clarity on a national level.

One of the most important areas where we really need to up our game is rapid screening. Right now, we're in a world where there are a lot of warehouses that are filled with rapid test kits, either federally or provincially, and we need to be able to enable more Canadian workplaces to implement rapid screening practices. I think that enabling lay people in particular to take on more responsibility and having provinces change the rules is a big thing that is currently missing.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Agnew.

When it comes to rapid testing and rapid screening, we did provide rapid tests to provinces and territories. Do you get the sense that they are being used on the ground? Have they been deployed by provinces and territories?

[Mark Agnew]

Some have been better than others.

In Ontario, notwithstanding what we're seeing with the third wave, there's more work being done to roll those out. Our chamber of commerce colleagues in Cambridge and Kitchener-Waterloo have been stepping up, but certainly other provinces have been less willing to enable the task shifting that needs to take place to allow people to take on more work.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you.

We'll turn now to Mr. Daley.

Mr. Daley, we heard from a witness earlier this week about some of the flexibilities that are already included in the TRIPS agreement. He cited three different articles in the TRIPS agreement that provided flexibilities that would help developing countries access vaccines, and he encouraged all countries to be using those flexibilities.

What is your opinion on the existing mechanisms available under the TRIPS agreement, and do you think that they can be used successfully?

[Brian Daley]

Thank you, Ms. Bendayan.

I'm not sufficiently versed in the finer points of the TRIPS agreement to really answer that question. I think, as I said earlier, that wholesale renunciation or waiver of patent rights is not the way to go, but I certainly think that any measures that the international community can implement to encourage production in other countries are welcome.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

That same witness also cautioned against a waiver of the TRIPS agreement, saying how it would impact our own life sciences sector here in Canada and possibly stymie innovation for Canadian life sciences businesses here at home. Would you agree with that assessment?

[Brian Daley]

Yes, I would, and I think there are a couple of things that we need to keep in mind. Some people have mentioned that intellectual property rights prevent the development of new medicines and that it would be great if everybody just had access to open-source intellectual property.

The problem is that this is only the first part of the equation. It takes an enormous investment of time, money and resources to get from the idea to an approved product, and we need to have an infrastructure in place that allows that to happen. Otherwise, we're not going to get the type of intellectual property that we need.

The other thing that we need to think about is this: We were able to achieve vaccines in a record period of time because there are well-financed, large companies with the resources that are necessary to do that type of work. If we don't have the infrastructure in place that encourages that type of work, we're not going to have those large, well-resourced companies to take on the next set of problems that we're going to face.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Daley.

We'll go on to Mr. Aboultaif for five minutes, please.