Thank you very much for the opportunity to join you today.
Messenger RNA is the most effective vaccine technology on the planet. The European Union has indicated that it intends to move exclusively to messenger RNA vaccines beginning in 2022. The U.S.A., while not publicly making this comment, has practically chosen messenger RNA vaccines for its citizens over other options by virtue of how it is procuring and distributing vaccines. This is not to mention the FDA's cautious stance on adenovirus-based COVID vaccines.
I see from the numerous press articles that Canada is now actively competing for 2022 booster vaccines. To date, only messenger RNA vaccine producers have publicly announced that they're working on a variant version of their vaccines for 2022 booster shots. Thus, I can only conclude that Minister Anand, on behalf of Canada, is negotiating with Pfizer and Moderna to secure booster mRNA vaccines for Canadians in 2022.
Providence Therapeutics is Canada's only messenger RNA vaccine company. Despite the fact that Providence has shared early clinical data with the Government of Canada that points towards a potentially best-in-class mRNA vaccine, and despite the fact that Providence, with its partners, has provided a clear path to manufacturing tens of millions of doses, Providence has not been contacted by Canada for its 2022 vaccine needs. We would welcome that engagement. Such an engagement would be consistent with every contract Canada struck with foreign vaccine companies in the summer of 2020 and would enable manufacturing to proceed as the vaccine moves through the regulatory process with Health Canada, just as was the case with foreign vaccine companies in 2020.
If commitments are made soon, Providence Therapeutics can provide enough booster vaccines for every Canadian by the first quarter of 2022. Canada has within its grasp the opportunity to be the first country in the world to fully vaccinate its citizens with an mRNA vaccine designed to protect against variants.
From day one, Providence has been prepared to prioritize Canada's needs. However, other than the purchase commitments by the Province of Manitoba, we have received no indication that Canada is interested in securing Providence vaccines for 2022. On the other hand, Providence has received serious inquiries for 2022 vaccine supply from multiple foreign buyers.
The COVID vaccines industry is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. As a measure of scale of the industry, Canada itself paid $8 billion for COVID vaccines in 2021 alone. Some portion of that economic activity could be boosting the Canadian economy and creating an export market, instead of simply adding to Canada's import costs.
Providence Therapeutics will be a major participant in the COVID vaccines industry. Here, before the Standing Committee on International Trade, we can all appreciate that Canada can and should lead other countries in demonstrating confidence in Canadian-made vaccines and in buying them. In this context, how sad would it be for the first major commitment for a Canadian-made vaccine to come from a foreign buyer? How unthinkable would it be that Providence would be forced to export world-class vaccines out of Canada when Canadian lives and livelihoods are under threat? None of us would want that. Early action by Canada can prevent what might be an unfortunate possibility.
I would like to formally ask this committee to consider passing a resolution to seek a commitment from the Government of Canada that if Canada continues to pass on its opportunity to buy Providence vaccines, it will not interfere with the exportation of Providence vaccines produced in Canada to countries outside of Canada. Even better, please consider passing a motion that encourages the Government of Canada to support Canadian vaccine manufacturing by buying from Canadian suppliers.
That is the end of my prepared comments, but given the comments from my fellow witnesses, I would like to add that the intellectual property situation related to messenger RNA is a lot more complicated than has been presented here. While my peers would like to suggest that they're willing to share intellectual property—Moderna has said that they wouldn't enforce patents—the reality is that their vaccines have been sequenced, and those sequences have been published. They are 90% alike.
Really, the only gatekeeping intellectual property in messenger RNA is related to lipid delivery. That gatekeeping is actually held by a Canadian company called Genevant, and Genevant is being infringed upon and not protected. We, Providence, are licensed and have secured a licence from Genevant, and we're playing by the rules. We are prepared—as I mentioned, we're negotiating with multiple other countries—to tech transfer. I am not interested in selling doses; I am interested in selling capacity. That's how this pandemic gets fixed.
We are going to be reaching out and contacting the WHO and discussing ways that we can work with them. We have been contacted by a consortium out of Africa and we're looking at doing that. We have been in discussions with the Government of Mexico. We're not focused strictly on first world countries; we're focused on the worldwide problem.
We need Canada's support. We need the ministries in Canada to share information across their ministries so that they can see what's being done.
Providence has shared data that demonstrates that we are safer and have fewer adverse events than our peers. We have a cold chain at -20° for long-term storage and transport, and we already have two months of data on refrigeration storage. Our immunological responses are superior. All of that will be confirmed publicly when we release our data to the public when the report is finalized from our phase I trial, but it is currently available to the Government of Canada for their review.
I don't know what else to do. We're trying to help the Canadian government understand that we have this technology, a world-class technology, at our fingertips.
I welcome questions.
Thank you.