Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank this committee for inviting me to attend with the panel of witnesses today.
My name is Toshifumi Tada, president and CEO of Medicago since May 2022. Before that, I was a director of the board for Medicago for four years, representing Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, our majority shareholder.
First, I would like to share with you that our shareholder, Mitsubishi Chemical Group, announced last month that it had decided to cease and proceed with an orderly wind up of our business and operations.
Medicago is a Canadian biopharmaceutical company with sites in Canada and the United States, specializing in the resource and development of new vaccines using plant-based virus-like particle technology. Our vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19, Covifenz, was approved by Health Canada in February 2022. This was intended as a first commercial product.
We had been preparing for the transition to commercial-scale production. However, considering the significant changes to the COVID-19 vaccine landscape, the global demand and market environment for the COVID-19 vaccines, and Medicago's internal challenges in transitioning to commercial-scale production, Mitsubishi Chemical Group determined that it would not pursue the commercialization of Covifenz.
They also judged that it was not viable to continue to make further investment in Medicago. It would have required hundreds of millions of dollars and years of testing to enable commercial-scale production. Therefore, we will cease our operations in the United States on April 14 of this year and in Canada on June 2 of this year.
Next, I would like to clarify Medicago's position on the requested disclosure of the adjuvanted vaccine supply contract, which we executed with Public Services and Procurement Canada on November 13, 2020. Given the cessation of our operations, our position is not to oppose the disclosure of an unredacted copy of the contract to the committee. However, we request that the committee keep the confidentiality of our commercial and clinical information in the contract in the context of its audit.
As we did in collaborating with PSPC to answer an access to information request in February 2021, we must stress again that the contract contains commercial and technical information that ought to remain confidential. We request the same grounds be given full weight and consideration by the committee and that the committee consequently ensure that all our commercial and technical information be kept confidential.
While we are working to wind up operations, some of our tangible assets, including facilities and equipment, and importantly, intangible assets such as our intellectual property rights, may be sold or transferred to other organizations. We must ensure that unauthorized disclosure of our confidential information will not jeopardize or lower the value of such transactions.
More specifically, and in summary, we request that the contract information redacted in our answer to PSPC in the context of the access to information request of February 2021 be kept confidential for the following three reasons.
First, such information is, in and of itself, confidential and has consistently been treated as such by PSPC and Medicago because it concerns our pricing, supply quantities, facility locations and availability plans, which have direct commercial applications.
Second, the disclosure of such information could reasonably be expected to result in material financial loss to us and to prejudice our competitive position, because it would permit our competitors to gain valuable insight into our proposed products and our marketing strategies and would unfairly enhance the position of such competitors.
Third, the disclosure of such information could reasonably be expected to interfere with our contractual or other negotiations with customers.
In conclusion, we respectfully request that the committee maintain the already recognized confidentiality of our commercial and technical information in the context of its audit.
Thank you very much for your attention.