Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask my question today to give the government a chance to update the House on a particular treatment for Ebola, and that is the monoclonal antibody treatment.
By contrast to vaccines, monoclonal antibodies would be something given to somebody who has already contracted Ebola. If there are a small number of people who might contract Ebola, the monoclonal antibody treatment would be used. If there were a large number of people who might get Ebola, they would be vaccinated beforehand.
The reason this point is relevant for Canada is that the Public Health Agency of Canada owns a number of lines of antibodies. These lines were developed in Canada. There are different ways to produce these antibodies, but one of the ways is in mammalian cells, particularly Chinese hamster ovary cells. A cell line is needed, and these antibodies are produced from these mammalian cells. Our National Research Council of Canada owns such a cell line, so it makes sense to combine these two, and there are companies in Canada that can do that to produce antibodies.
Is this treatment perhaps pie in the sky and just speculative? Let us consider that the Gates Foundation in the United States and a large company, Amgen, have committed people and resources in collaboration with a third company, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, to produce monoclonal antibodies against the Ebola virus in these Chinese hamster ovary cell lines. If it is good enough for them, why could we not use the results of research in Canada to give a boost to manufacturing in biotechnology in Canada and at the same time produce a domestic supply of a treatment for Ebola that would be applicable when a small number of people are at risk of getting it?
That is the background of this treatment.
The question is twofold. What, if any, progress has been made in kick-starting this particular manufacture of an Ebola treatment in Canada, since the question was asked a couple of weeks ago in question period? Second, does the government agree that this is a good opportunity to take the fruits of Canadian basic research by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the National Research Council, which owns the right cell line, combine them in Canada, and kick-start one particular aspect of biotech manufacturing in Canada?
I am hoping that the parliamentary secretary will provide the House with some good news. There is no criticism of the government here. It is a decision about whether funding this manufacturing in Canada would be a good use of resources. It is something that has occurred in the United States, as I said, with the Gates Foundation and Amgen working on exactly what I am talking about today.
My simple question to the parliamentary secretary is whether the Government of Canada has taken any steps since a couple of weeks ago to get this manufacturing going.