Evidence of meeting #24 for International Trade in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was countries.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
A popular argument is that we should leave vaccine production and distribution in the hands of the private sector, because that's the most efficient and effective way to go. Do we really have the necessary data, though, to say whether the private sector production model in place during this pandemic is the most efficient and effective?
Must we take it on faith since we don't have enough data to conduct a proper assessment?
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual
That's a great question as well.
Intellectual property and the private market are said to be the best mechanisms to advance science.
Consider, though, the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, which decided to fully adopt open science to address rare diseases. The Structural Genomics Consortium did the same. From a researcher's standpoint, intellectual property protection has, above all, become a barrier to research and product breakthroughs.
Obviously, the business world disagrees, because the intellectual property regime is the best way to keep profit margins very high. When it comes to research, breakthroughs and the development of new products, however, intellectual property protections are an ever-growing barrier, a factor that isn't being taken into account.
In the first few months of the pandemic, everyone worked on the open science model, and the knowledge base grew in leaps and bounds. During a public health emergency, the proprietary science model does more to fuel parasitic behaviours and price gouging, and does not necessarily meet the current public health needs, as we have seen.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm sorry, Mr. Blaikie. Your time is up.
We'll go on to Mr. Lobb for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm just going to lay out some context. I'm from Ontario and I think we're vaccinating about 110,00 to 120,000 people a day, as you all know. We probably have the capacity to vaccinate anywhere from 400,00 to 500,000 people a day. In my area of Huron—Bruce, and if you want to go up into Grey, the population's just over 200,000 people. At some of our clinics we can do 2,000 a day. In Hanover, one day they did 3,500 in a day.
The issue in Ontario and the issue in my area is supply. Everybody on this panel knows that today. That's what led to all these lockdowns and the situation we're in in Ontario.
The question is, how do we get more supply, not only for Canada and Ontario, but for the rest of the world?
Looking at Mr. Sorenson there, I think to myself that his open letter to the Prime Minister indicated that at some point in 2021 there would be a potential production capacity of 50 million doses. Is that in your own facility or is that through a consortium?
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
In terms of our 2021 production, there are two stages for mRNA vaccines. First there's a drug substance stage to make the mRNA. That is taking place in North Dakota, and we already have that space secured for us. This is at a facility that has a tremendous amount of experience. We've already tech transferred, so they know how to do what we need them to do to produce at scale.
The second part of that is done in Winnipeg, Manitoba, by Emergent BioSolutions. We are tech transferring to them this month so that they know how to do the formulation portion of the process, and then they do the fill-finish.
With just that existing capacity alone, once we start the process, the reason we could commit 50 million doses at that time is that we would be up and running. Assuming we had bought the raw materials in January, we could have been up and running in July and producing. That would have allowed us to make 50 million doses. We did not get the support for the raw materials. The soonest we could be up and running now would be in September. We could still make tens of millions of doses.
It's just there, waiting to be turned on.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I'm not in your industry, so you're going to have to bear with me with this question. It's my understanding that Moderna—and you did touch on some of the Moderna stuff—made kind of an open letter or an open commitment to say that their intellectual property is available.
I'm probably naive here, but in the meantime, while you're doing this, why not just scoop that in and piggyback on their approvals?
Chief Executive Officer, Providence Therapeutics
I'm sorry, Ben; that was just a PR exercise. The reality is that Moderna and all mRNA manufacturers understand that in the mRNA space, there's actually very little IP. It's a trade secret.
You can share your IP. You can share the sequence of your mRNA, but it's a trade secret with regard to how you optimized it, what codons you used and what your purification process is. Moderna's not going to share that. They'll share their IP, but nobody will know what to do with it. The reason they took that stance was so they could sound like they're above the fray while they are trampling on a Canadian company's IP for the delivery. It was a strategic move.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Well, thank you for that honest answer there, for sure.
Mr. Daley, I've been on the industry committee through the years and on the health committee through the years, and the discussion and the debate around IP rights at the education level and partnering with companies or some young person who comes up with a great idea have been going on for years. These arguments and debates about who owns the IP, whether it's the student or the university, have been going on for a long, long time.
I'm wondering if Canada should look at a partnership with the United States and Mexico so we could be one economic zone here. When the next issue hits—pandemic, what have you—we need to have not just an Operation Warp Speed but three countries coming together in equal shares to have the benefit that the United States has right now.
Is that possible, or is that pie in the sky?
Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright Canada, As an Individual
There are two answers to that, or at least two aspects of an answer to it.
The first is that your idea is in keeping with what I suggested, which was that a regional approach to producing products to combat pandemics such as COVID is desirable, and this region includes the United States and Mexico. That's definitely something that I would encourage.
Whether these countries would be willing to merge their intellectual property regimes is a different question, and not one that I'm qualified to answer. I expect that countries like the United States are going to insist on maintaining control over their own intellectual property laws. That doesn't mean that we can't work out ways to share technology and co-operate with each other in areas where our interests are the same.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you, Mr. Daley.
We go on to Ms. Bendayan for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank all the witnesses for their presentations today.
Mr. Gagnon, you spoke of the importance of pooling technology and expertise. My father is a medical researcher, so I'm familiar with the field. I don't disagree with much of what you said about the importance of open science.
A few days ago, a number of experts told the committee that the problem wasn't necessarily the WTO's TRIPS Agreement. The problem was that many countries, including nearly all developing countries, lack the necessary capacity. A waiver from the application of the agreement would not fix the problem.
Where do you stand on that?
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual
Thank you for your question.
Essentially, my answer is this: that is not the position of the WHO, which is also of the view that vaccine production capacity is not being used right now.
What's important to understand is that we created a system where the ability to make a profit depends on the ability to control the vaccine. We need to encourage a system where the financial incentive works differently: the more people who are vaccinated and the more doses that are produced around the world, the greater the profit that can be made.
It would be very easy to set up a system like that. The vaccine is purchased, it goes to a patent pool, and the company making it earns 4% on each vaccine it produces. At that point, the company has every interest to maximize expertise pooling and co-operation with different countries and producers to—
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Sorry to cut you off, but I have a limited amount of time.
You brought up the idea of establishing another system. We are facing a very specific issue right now. Should Canada pledge its support to developing countries, which are calling for a waiver from the application of the TRIPS Agreement? A number of the witnesses we've heard from say that would not solve the problem in the immediate term.
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual
I think the long-term solution lies in an alternative system. Right now, suspending the TRIPS provisions in relation to COVID-19 products is the first step we must take to get out of this mess we're in, and the first step to come up with an alternative system for certain types of products going forward.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you.
I'll turn now to Brian Daley. Just for full transparency, Mr. Daley and I were colleagues at Norton Rose while I was in private practice.
Mr. Daley, one of the things you mentioned that certainly piqued my interest and, quite frankly, my concern was quality control. You mentioned towards the end of your opening remarks that there may be issues of elements or products going into supply chains that wouldn't have sufficient quality control and could therefore impact the health and security of Canadians and, quite frankly, of all people.
Could you expand a little on that?
Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright Canada, As an Individual
Certainly, Ms. Bendayan. Thank you.
As I said, I read the request for waiver on the WTO website. It's framed in very general terms. Let's take patent rights as an example. It simply asks for a wholesale suspension, essentially in several countries.
If you were an IP rights holder and you wanted to license production of your patented product in another country, you would enter into a licensing agreement with a third party. In that licensing agreement, you would have quality control provisions. You would say that your product must meet certain standards. That's how you would do it normally.
If you just say that all bets are off, that all patent rights are suspended, you don't have any control over who's going to make those products, who's going to practise those patented inventions, and that's where you lose control over the process. I think that is an area that the waiver request simply doesn't address, as far as I have seen.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm sorry; your time is up, Ms. Bendayan.
We'll move on to Mr. Savard-Tremblay for two and a half minutes, please.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Gagnon, it became clear that, under COVAX, it wasn't always possible to secure contracts with vaccine makers. Canada, for instance, is willing to pay more, and claims that it's a huge success.
What is your position on that?
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual
No, it's not.
The international community initially wanted to set up a patent pool, and companies were very reluctant to take part. Instead, they favoured establishing the buying platform known as COVAX, which completely adheres to the intellectual property regime.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I gather, then, that one of the solutions you are recommending is setting up a patent pool, which you mentioned earlier.
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes, that's absolutely right. That's what C-TAP and the MPP are.
The problem for COVAX is that it has to compete with yet another player in this war of vaccine nationalism dominated by a fend-for-yourself mentality. COVAX hasn't been able to compete in a marketplace where the wealthiest countries can afford to pay a lot more for vaccine doses. COVAX is really struggling to procure supply.
Nonetheless, it was a promising initiative, and Canada's involvement was a good thing. If, however, Canada once again secures 500% of its vaccine dose requirements elsewhere, thereby competing with COVAX, it will no longer be part of the initiative. We are helping to stop COVAX in its tracks.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
You're saying we are helping to stop the initiative in its tracks. Instead of ensuring efforts are globally aligned, COVAX is becoming just another initiative.
Does that capture your view?
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes, that's right.
COVAX is becoming yet another competitor in the global marketplace—a dysfunctional marketplace. Only the wealthiest nations are getting vaccine doses. Low-income countries have received just 0.2% of the 2.5 billion doses distributed thus far. COVAX is unable to meet its objectives. That is a real problem.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO's director-general, recommended a third approach: urging vaccine makers to enter into more licensing agreements with various partners. That's obvious. If, from the outset, companies had had an interest in pursuing as many licensing agreements as possible around the world, global vaccine manufacturing capacity could have truly been leveraged. Very quickly, however, aside from AstraZeneca—