Health committee  We don't discuss details about the contract. However, I understand the $173 million contracted in 2020 was a contribution by ISED to help Medicago's development of the COVID-19 vaccine and the establishment of the large-scale manufacturing facility.

Health committee  I don't know whether they had a concern 10 years ago or not.

Health committee  First, a shareholding structure was a topic discussed between two shareholders. Medicago itself was not involved in the shareholders' discussion, so I'm not in a position to make a comment on that aspect.

Health committee  That's our understanding. It has nothing to do with the vaccine's efficacy or quality.

Health committee  First, I want to qualify that we used a plant called nicotiana benthamiana. This is a relative to the tobacco leaf, but it's quite different from the tobacco you smoke. Our vaccine contains no tobacco or nicotine products.

Health committee  Thank you for the question. I understand the result was that the share transfer from Philip Morris Investments to Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma was the result of intensive discussions between the two shareholders. Medicago was not involved in those discussions, so we don't have any knowledge to answer your question.

Health committee  No, I don't know. It was between the shareholders.

Health committee  Thank you for the question. There are two answers. First, after approval, we faced internal challenges in scale-up for the commercialization and we knew that it would take time to fix it. That's the first. Second, while we were fixing the issue, we started to observe that the COVID-19 vaccine market was evolving quite a lot and that market demands were shifting to the bivalent vaccine, including the omicron strain.

Health committee  Thank you for the question. The factory we have in North Carolina is a leased asset, so it is not a part of any transaction with Aramis.

Health committee  Yes, thank you very much. Our shareholder, Mitsubishi Chemical, had to make a difficult business decision. This is the business decision that was made. However, it wanted to be as co-operative as possible with the Canadian government so that we can have win-win solutions. As a result of that, we agreed with ISED to terminate the agreement, but we settled by transferring the key assets we had, which were the R and D pilot plant, the equipment and the IP to a Canadian company at the request of ISED.

Health committee  Medicago is winding up now, so we are not working on that at this point in time. However, if Aramis continues to advance technologies leveraging our medical achievements, hopefully it can find some new solutions, new potential and new applications for the VLP plant-based technologies.

Health committee  Yes. Previously, we worked on both viruses before. Now, because of the business decision by our shareholders, we are winding up, and we transferred some key assets to Aramis, so hopefully.... I'm not in a position to make any comments on Aramis's business plans and strategies, but it may or may not take those products as its strategies.

Health committee  It's very difficult to answer a hypothetical question, so I'll refrain from commenting on that. I'm sorry for that.

Health committee  Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation acquired 60% of Medicago in 2013, 10 years ago. The vaccine business is one of their core focus areas, so they wanted to strengthen their business capabilities by incorporating Medicago's technology, which is plant-based VLP.

Health committee  Philip Morris was a shareholder of Medicago even before Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma acquired 60%. Based on the discussion between Philip Morris's investment and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, they agreed to form a joint venture at a 60-40 shareholding ratio.