Government Operations committee  Thank you. It was our pleasure.

Government Operations committee  I could answer that, Roger. When our task force started, there were discussions with CanSino. We did discuss CanSino—and after the agreements were already in place, they were marching down the path. But early on in our discussions, we were concerned about the delay in samples co

Government Operations committee  To our knowledge we gave advice to the Government of Canada, and the Government of Canada then made agreements with those companies and announced them. I remember a particular evening when some concerns about Canada's ability or timing of our contracts were expressed. I think it

Government Operations committee  We don't know that. I will make two comments. When the minister announced that, she said it was based on advice from the vaccine task force. We were involved in that advice. Over the course of our discussions, we have met with our counterparts in the U.K., New Zealand, Austra

Government Operations committee  Early on, when we were doing our rubric and we were looking at the assessment, supply chain, and the reliability of the supply chain, played a very large role. We are fortunate to have some people who have been involved in the manufacturing and the science of vaccinology, immunol

Government Operations committee  Maybe I can jump in.

Government Operations committee  Well, Quebec certainly is a hotbed of biomanufacturing and life sciences. There are others across the country—Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, and out east in Halifax—and I think there's an opportunity here across the board to coordinate and to make sure people work toge

Government Operations committee  First of all, a lot of the technology related to mRNA vaccines and mRNA generally has come from the Vancouver area and the University of British Columbia. There are number of companies involved with lipid nanoparticles—which are an important way of encasing the RNA—that are prese

Government Operations committee  I would be happy to speak to it.

Government Operations committee  If I understand the question correctly.... There are investments being made in viral vector capacity here, as well, so that could be an opportunity, as well, down the road to produce them here. However, in terms of viral vector vaccines, those may also be available for other pa

Government Operations committee  First of all, thank you very much for the comments. Sorry, can you just reiterate briefly the achievement that you...?

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. It is unheard of. It's unprecedented. I don't know that any of us thought it would be done that quickly. Thank goodness it has been, because other measures have been challenging. As I said, typically a vaccine would take 10-plus years to develop. The

Government Operations committee  I think the first point I would make is that there has been awareness that we have some challenges with biomanufacturing. We weren't ready for this pandemic, and we have lagged behind. Outside of GSK's and Sanofi Pasteur's vaccine campuses, there tends to be a number of companies

Government Operations committee  If I could continue, the $5 million was to help them advance phase 1 clinical trials. I understand they are in phase 1 clinical trial now. When they get results from that, that will be meaningful. The way vaccine development works, you do phase 1 clinical trials for safety.

Government Operations committee  The point is, I would think that if they have effective phase 1 results and move into phase 2, they can always come back for funding. The companies we funded and were looking at were in phase 3 and were licensed. If they're in phase 1 clinical—