:
I now call this meeting to order. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 20 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will only show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee. To ensure an orderly meeting, I'll outline the usual rules.
Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of “floor”, “English” or “French”. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you're on video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute your mike. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.
As a reminder, all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. As is my normal practice, I will hold up the yellow card for when you have 30 seconds remaining and the red card for when the time for your intervention has expired.
We have a very full agenda this morning and I understand two witness groups have to leave at noon. Therefore, I'm going to ask you to please respect the time so that everyone can get a turn.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, the committee is meeting today to study the domestic manufacturing capacity for a COVID-19 vaccine.
I now welcome our witnesses. Today, we have Dr. Mona Nemer, who is the chief science adviser; Brian Lichty, an associate professor at McMaster University; Karen Mossman, vice-president of research at McMaster University; from Precision NanoSystems, James Taylor, CEO, and Andrew Booth, chairman; from Medicago, Takashi Nagao, president and CEO, and Nicolas Petit, vice-president of commercial operations; and Dr. Gary Kobinger, of Université Laval.
Each witness will present for up to seven minutes, followed by a round of questions.
We will start with Dr. Nemer.
You have seven minutes.
[Translation]
Good morning.
Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you today.
Since my last appearance before this committee, in December 2017, I have fulfilled my first mandate and was subsequently reappointed for a two-year term in September 2020.
[English]
In the interest of time, I will not go into the details of my mandate, but as a science adviser to the and cabinet, I will say that the past year has been largely devoted to advice related to the COVID-19 health crisis.
Of course, the pandemic is an extremely complex situation with numerous facets. It's all the more challenging when it's due to a new virus about which we know very little, which is why in order to help inform my advice I established a multidisciplinary scientific advisory group early on. We focus on areas ranging from COVID-19 diagnostics and research needs to aerosol transmission, infection in children and long-term care settings.
Researchers were mobilized and willing to generously share their findings and advice. As a result, science has guided decision-making in real time like I have never seen before. The COVID-19 expert panel, made up of distinguished researchers and practitioners in infectious disease, disease modelling and behavioural sciences from across the country, held its first meeting on March 10. It has met since more than 40 times, and panel members also participated in several targeted task forces to which additional experts contributed. This ensured a coordinated and integrated science advice mechanism. Throughout, an impressive number of scientists and health practitioners have generously contributed their time and expertise for the service of their country.
[Translation]
My office also helped set up CanCOVID to stimulate COVID-19 research and partnerships. The network boasts over 3,000 members across the country and has been very successful in fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation.
In addition to domestic outreach, I have been in regular communication with my international counterparts. We share information on disease spread and containment, knowledge gaps, research activities and priorities, as well as clinical studies. This has kept us all up to date on the latest developments worldwide.
[English]
Early in the pandemic several clinical studies aimed at treating or preventing COVID-19 and its complications using existing drugs got under way, but the results were mostly disappointing. Attention increasingly focused on vaccine development for disease prevention.
In Canada, federal funds were allocated as early as March and April 2020 for vaccine and therapeutic developments through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
COVID-19 vaccine development, manufacturing and distribution were topics I discussed extensively with my international counterparts, including those in the U.K. and the U.S. It became evident to me that independent expert advice on vaccine development and procurement was needed, which is why I recommended the creation of the vaccine task force.
[Translation]
Made up of 11 members of Canada's vaccine research community and four ex officio members, of which I am one, the task force has been instrumental in helping to identify and prioritize vaccine candidates, support domestic vaccine development, and inform supply chain coordination.
[English]
I have participated in the vast majority of the task force meetings, and I have always been completely satisfied with the scientific rigour that framed their deliberations. Like so many others in Canada's scientific community, these researchers were ready and willing to step up and contribute pro bono their time and expertise to helping fight this health crisis. As a result, Canada now has a diverse portfolio of the leading effective vaccines from three different technologies. I believe that Canadians have been well served by this remarkable group.
The only downside to the amazing feat of the development of vaccines against COVID-19 is that the first of these vaccines came from outside the country. The fact that Canada has modest human vaccine production capabilities is not news; it's a problem that has existed for nearly four decades. As a scientist, I have spent most of my career in biopharmaceutical research, and sadly, I have witnessed the decline of our country's therapeutic development capacity over much of that time.
It does not have to be this way. Therapeutic development, whether vaccines or drugs, is a lengthy and complex process requiring dynamic collaboration among researchers, clinicians, government and private sector organizations. The rewards, as seen in this pandemic, are well worth the efforts.
Canada has exquisite assets to support a thriving biomanufacturing ecosystem from world-renowned scientists who continue to make critical discoveries in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences to innovative SMEs with promising products. But taking a discovery from the lab to the community or scaling up drug and vaccine production for human use is not a trivial undertaking.
[Translation]
It is my hope that the health needs and science successes witnessed during this pandemic will encourage us to put in place the resources and infrastructure to take our discoveries into innovative health products manufactured in Canada for Canadians, but also for the world.
[English]
Building our biomanufacturing capacity will not happen overnight, but it is vital that we work towards it, and now is the time to establish the strategies and act on them.
Science gave us hope and the tools to overcome this crisis, from diagnostics to vaccines and therapeutics. We in Canada have much to offer to fight this and future health threats. I look forward to the extraordinary opportunities that lie ahead.
Thank you.
:
At McMaster, our researchers pivoted quickly to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with most of the research coming from the newly launched Canada's Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats. This includes working on the development of home test kits, leading a national trial for plasma transfusion, and leading a trial on anti-coronavirus therapies.
A great deal of work is being done across the university to innovate respiratory ventilators and N95 masks. Thanks to funding from CIHR and CFI, my own lab is currently studying SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis.
This pandemic has exposed significant gaps in Canada's domestic biomanufacturing capacity. While important steps are being taken to correct this imbalance in the future, we believe action can be taken now to ensure that Canada can produce its own vaccines without the need to solely rely on international partners.
McMaster is home to the Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Laboratory. Founded 17 years ago, this biomanufacturing facility is currently producing a made-in-Canada COVID-19 vaccine which, pending approval, will be ready for clinical trials in the spring. This second-generation vaccine candidate has been designed to provide broader anti-coronavirus immunity to aid in protection against the variants and potential future pandemic coronaviruses. The research into this vaccine candidate is Canadian, the IP is Canadian, and we hope that production will be Canadian.
Investment will be key to growing Canada's vaccine manufacturing capacity. McMaster's facility could and should play a role in Canada's biomanufacturing future. With support, the facility could be upgraded in a matter of months to produce on the order of a million doses of the vaccine per production run.
McMaster University has recently partnered with the University of Saskatchewan and VIDO-InterVac to approach pandemic preparedness from a position of strength. Together we urge the government to invest in our proposals, which build on decades of excellence in infectious disease research.
I will now pass it over to my colleague, Dr. Brian Lichty, who is the director of the Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Laboratory. He can speak more to the work being done there.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to address this committee.
The Robert E. Fitzhenry vector facility is designed to produce adenoviral vectored vaccines. These will be similar to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, and actually the CanSino and Sputnik vaccines, for example.
McMaster pioneered the genetic engineering of adenoviral vaccine vectors decades ago, and all such vaccines are essentially based on Canadian technologies that were initially developed at McMaster.
The facility was originally designed to produce vaccines for phase one/two testing, and in the past has manufactured vaccines for infectious disease and oncology clinical trials in humans as well as veterinary trials in oncology. This work has allowed McMaster to license technology to industry and recently to spin out a biotech company that now employs over 60 scientists and technical staff in Ontario.
Our team is currently manufacturing two second-generation adenoviral vectored COVID vaccines designed to provide a broader immunity against three SARS-CoV-2 proteins. This design is expected to provide immunity to vaccinees against components that are less able to change and are conserved across the arising variants and even potential pandemic coronaviral species that are present in Asian bat populations.
McMaster has also pioneered methods to administer these vaccines through inhalation using a device analogous to a puffer. This would boost immunity within the lung where it is needed most. Importantly, this route of administration allows for a much lower dose of vaccine to be effective. Our planned trial will incorporate this route of administration.
In closing, I would like to express my gratitude for the rapid response to COVID-19 from the government and all parties. A robust domestic manufacturing capacity for vaccines is pivotal for Canada not only to ensure Canadians have timely access to lifesaving vaccines, but also from an IP, innovation and national security point of view. We have a great foundation for domestic manufacturing capacity in Canada and we see a path forward to creating a dynamic ecosystem.
McMaster has initiated conversations with NRC about the new Royalmount facility, and we see a tremendous opportunity for small academic facilities like ourselves to position ourselves better as feeder facilities for these larger biomanufacturing centres. This would allow the future Canadian ecosystem to be nimble and better poised to develop and test new technologies. Decisions made in the near future will determine whether this capacity will meet the needs of future pandemics, or if we will continue to rely on our international partners.
I look forward to your questions.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I’ll begin by acknowledging that I am speaking on the traditional territory of the Squamish Nation, right here in Squamish, British Columbia.
As chairman of Vancouver-based Precision NanoSystems, I welcome the opportunity to update the honourable members on the contributions Precision and the broader domestic biotech industry have made to keep Canadians safe during the pandemic.
We're proud that our work is unlocking the potential of Canadian science and innovation. The domestic biotech and life sciences sectors are leading the development of some of the world’s most innovative treatments for rare disease, infectious disease and cancer. This life-saving work is being done by the world-leading talent we have here in Canada.
Canadian biotech and life sciences companies will play a vital role in rebuilding the economy post-COVID-19 by creating IP-intensive, knowledge-based jobs and attracting the brightest talents from around the world. Our industry allows Canadian students and young aspiring scientists to realize their potential here in Canada.
Canadian innovators are very strong. Many of the innovations that are now allowing us to prevent and treat COVID-19 come from Canadian companies. As we enter this critical period of economic recovery, we must support the homegrown Canadian firms to scale and develop the technologies and solutions to solve current and future health challenges.
Investing in domestic biomanufacturing capacity is certainly part of the solution. This is an area in which the government and industry can work together to support domestic firms in developing their technologies for the benefit of all Canadians and, frankly speaking, for the entire world.
We are pleased to see the government begin to chart the long-term vision of domestic biomanufacturing in partnership with the private sector. By making these investments, we will create high-value, sustainable economic activity and build the capabilities and competences to be prepared for the future.
The question is not whether another pandemic will descend on the world. The question is when it is going to happen, and we need to be prepared for it. We need to be strategic in our planning, because the decisions we make today will save lives in the future.
My colleague James Taylor will further expand on this. I thank all the honourable members for the opportunity to address you today.
:
Good morning, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the committee for inviting me to speak about this important and very timely topic.
I understand that you've been fortunate to hear from many of my colleagues about the tremendous efforts currently being done collaboratively in Canada by government, academia and industry to provide solutions today and better prepare us for all future pandemics. I hope my testimony today offers additional insight.
Precision NanoSystems' mission is to accelerate the creation of transformative medicines that significantly impact human well-being. We work with the world's leading pharmaceutical companies to create the drugs of the future, namely, genetic medicines: the delivery of RNA and DNA to cells to treat disease.
As therapeutics, genetic medicines treat disease at its fundamental molecular root cause and, as vaccines, they are used to teach the immune system to protect us from a given pathogen. We are proud to provide manufacturing technologies, drug technologies and services to enable genetic medicines to be developed to prevent and treat diseases, including cancer, rare diseases, infectious diseases and many more indications of high unmet medical needs.
We founded Precision NanoSystems 10 years ago as a spinoff from the University of British Columbia, with the goal of enabling the promise of genetic medicines. We now support hundreds of the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies to create these transformative medicines. We are proud to have built a highly talented and rapidly growing team of over 120 and to have played an important role in training a diversified workforce in Canada and institutionalizing Canada's strong life science commitment to its citizens.
COVID-19 has been devastating for individuals and the world. We should anticipate future pandemics and epidemics and prepare accordingly. We believe it is essential for Canada to secure and invest in a variety of vaccine technologies, including RNA vaccines, viral-based vaccines, protein subunit vaccines and others. This is prudent for many reasons. Notably, the world has seen RNA medicines' disruptive capabilities and how they could rapidly be developed and deployed against COVID-19, illustrating the power of genetic medicines. We see similar medical disruptions by genetic medicines across all major disease classes.
Genetic medicines really represent a unique opportunity for Canada. They represent one of the fastest-growing areas of pharmaceuticals, and Canada is a leader in many aspects of these technologies. Here in Vancouver, for example, is a world-leading centre for technologies that deliver RNA and DNA, with an expanding ecosystem consisting of local innovators and branches of large multinationals.
Precision NanoSystems provides game-changing solutions for drugs being developed in areas of high unmet medical needs, such as cancer, rare diseases and infectious diseases. We are proud to have collaborated with or provided solutions to companies, academic institutions and not-for-profit agencies in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
To solve major challenges like COVID-19, we believe that strong partnerships are required between the public and private sectors. With the Government of Canada's support, we have embarked on two key initiatives: the development of a differentiated COVID-19 vaccine and the opening of a biomanufacturing centre to create domestic production capacity.
Our COVID-19 vaccine program aims to develop a self-amplifying RNA vaccine, which, if successful, can potentially be dosed 20 to100 times lower than the messenger RNA vaccines currently authorized today under emergency use. By its nature, this will reduce manufacturing bottlenecks, as less material is needed per dose, allowing more people to access vaccines in a shorter time. Also, the smaller dose may decrease adverse effects. We aim to enter an adaptive phase one/two clinical trial by this summer and to be completed by the end of this year.
Our genetic medicine biomanufacturing centre will be a state-of-the-art facility for developing and manufacturing genetic therapeutics and vaccines. The biomanufacturing centre will support PNI's COVID-19 vaccine program, as well as PNI's large and growing client programs in other areas of high unmet medical need.
Successful completion of this facility will produce some of the world's most innovative genetic medicines right here in Canada. We are fostering local technology development, job creation and talent development and rebuilding our ability to respond domestically to future pandemics. Leveraging our existing relationships and pipeline of programs, the biomanufacturing centre will be a state-of-the-art, commercially viable facility for the most innovative genetic medicines produced here in Canada for years.
Lastly, I would like to recognize and thank the government employees who have worked with us recently and over the years. Our team has interacted with many individuals who have worked tirelessly and with the utmost commitment to enable these and other important projects.
Thank you. I'm available to answer any questions you may have.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and members of the committee.
I will be speaking English.
On behalf of Medicago, I would like to thank you for inviting us to present at this hearing.
Medicago is a Canadian biopharmaceutical company with a mission to improve health outcomes of people by using our innovative plant-based protein expression technologies for rapid response to the emerging global health threats, such as one that we are facing today with COVID-19.
We are proud to be contributing to the fight against COVID-19 by developing a made-in-Canada vaccine candidate, which is currently in development in the phase two/three program. We are a proud Canadian company, headquartered in Quebec City, making a significant contribution to jobs and investment in the national economy.
Let me spend a moment to introduce our technology and its uniqueness. Our vaccines are so-called virus-like particles, or VLPs, which mimic the shape and appearance of the virus without being pathogenic. Because of this feature, it induces a very strong and broad protection through the immune system when it's introduced. Also, our plant-based production capability is extremely versatile and positioned to support rapid response to the situation we are facing.
With our capability and platform, we can receive the genetic sequence information of the virus, which is applied to express the VLP vaccine candidate for rapid development. That would be suitable to the situation like the pandemic we are facing.
We are currently assessing the immune response of our current program against the Wuhan strain and against emerging new variants. We are contemplating developing a new vaccine against the emerging new variants as well.
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, Medicago has reallocated nearly all of its resources to developing a vaccine candidate and variants and has also tried to accelerate our path to increase Canada's domestic vaccine manufacturing capabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical need for domestic manufacturing of vaccines and other products to ensure that Canada is prepared to protect its citizens from emerging infectious disease. Medicago is proud to provide domestic solutions—
:
Medicago is proud to provide a domestic solution to respond to the pandemic, which will require support from the government at multiple levels.
We have seen other jurisdictions, such as the U.S., U.K. and Germany, investing in local companies to provide domestic capacity in their countries. The Government of Canada has kindly supported our efforts at Medicago in the development and production of COVID-19 vaccines. It will ensure availability of a Canadian-made vaccine to the population and provide much-needed domestic manufacturing capacity for vaccines, antibodies and other immunotherapies.
In addition, Canada's advance purchase order of our vaccine has allowed us to reserve supplies for Canada, and it provides the security needed for us to pivot resources from other programs and focus on COVID-19 vaccine development and production.
As we look at the critical factors involved in preparing for the pandemic, it may be useful to structure our response according to the three major axes: time, economics and competencies. Pandemic response requires long-term planning given that many years of efforts are needed. Private-public partnership provides strong synergies. While Canada needs to secure technology and domestic production capabilities, industry requires long-term sustainability to encourage significant private investment.
Competencies are also critical to ensure the domestic response, from the early research to the critical development, production and distribution. The government approach to investment should be focused on strengthening each link of this value chain with strong, long-term planning and commitment.
Last, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the government leaders and partners who made this investment possible, the Government of Canada, specifically the Public Health Agency of Canada; Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and the Government of Quebec. We are very grateful for your support and look forward to continuing to work with government partners to protect Canadians from the current COVID-19 outbreak and future public emergencies.
I'd be happy to entertain any questions. Thank you very much.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Gary Kobinger. I'm a professor in infectious diseases at Université Laval and former chief of the special pathogen program at the national lab in Winnipeg. My expertise sits on the development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and therapeutics against emerging and re-emerging pathogens as well as outbreak responses on the ground in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
From 2003 to 2005 I contributed to the development of the first mice model of SARS and one of the first reports on the ferret and macaque models. In parallel, I communicated some of the first reports on the stability of SARS in the environment and opportunity for contactless transmission from droplets. I'm here today to share my expertise and perspective on these subjects as applied to SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID.
As a scientist and as a Canadian, I have seen unfold the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 worldwide within a few months. I have witnessed, like most of us, many extraordinary achievements and some missed opportunities. I'm here to highlight some of these successes and missed opportunities, because they are where we can learn and focus our efforts to improve our response in order to save lives tomorrow, next month and in the years to come.
In six to 12 months we will look behind, and surely we will be able to say that we made it through okay. We could have done better, as we can always improve. All things considered, we did make it through okay. But make no mistake: Not all of us will make it through at all. For the families and friends of the ones who will die, it will mean dramatic losses of loved ones, changing families and friendships forever. For the most vulnerable, it will be even more dramatic. The numbers will be higher. These are the people we must protect first.
Canada and the provinces and territories have done great with regard to diagnostic services. We must acknowledge the contribution and leadership of PHAC, including Dr. Theresa Tam and Dr. Matt Gilmour, who worked countless hours on decentralizing the diagnostic of COVID to provinces, which in turn expanded to hospitals. We saw the sharing of PPE within and between provinces and territories when PPE became more difficult to find than precious stones. We saw protective vaccines being developed within timelines never seen before in the history of vaccination, and unexpected alliances between big pharma and academia, such as Oxford and AstraZeneca, and big pharma and not-for-profits, such as Merck and IAVI.
We also saw missed opportunities. Currently, the reality is that over one year into this epidemic, only about 6% of the world population has limited access to vaccinations. Most countries, including Canada, delayed too long before imposing travel restrictions to delay the growing seeding of COVID spread throughout the country. More dramatically, the usage of masks at the population level was delayed for months while hard data strongly indicated their benefit in reducing spread, reducing exposure doses, and protecting from infection and severe disease and death. Even in March 2020, some within the federal government were aware of such data and were warned that the first major mistake in emergency response is to not adapt to rapidly growing science to protect policies and politics rather than public health.
Canada was well advised to sign multiple contracts with major pharma above the number of doses required. Unfortunately, it failed to act timely from January to February in 2020 and develop and implement strategies to build vaccine development and manufacturing within Canadian borders. This did not come up in January and February but months later, in July and beyond. As with masks, how many lives could have been saved through a more prompt reaction? We will be able to calculate soon. Each life lost will be one too many.
We were at least three teams with experience in bringing experimental vaccines against infectious diseases to the clinic in Canada. One finally received federal funding in late August 2020 to initiate their clinical development. This was Medicago. The others are also present here with my Ontario colleague.
Canada's solution now is largely sitting with the NRC. The NRC is managing the vaccine task force and managing funding to six promising vaccines. The NRC itself has never brought a human vaccine to licensure, to my knowledge. A federal department, the NRC, with approval from another federal department, Health Canada, is proposing to produce vaccines for the country's citizens—a model that exists only in authoritarian regimes or in communist countries. It's a ticking bomb that may well blow unless some other unexplained strategy is deployed.
My group, with a vaccine strategy that we have shown works against Zika and recently MERS, which is another coronavirus, with a COVID vaccine ready to progress through the clinic since mid-February 2020, a vaccine that showed protection levels similar to a commercial mRNA vaccine in animals, that vaccine received $1 million, and we are very thankful. Despite the great data in preclinical studies, there was nothing more—zero.
Now, let's be serious. Nobody on this planet can bring a vaccine through any clinical study in humans with $1 million, so we can ask whether this $1 million was well spent considering the lack of follow-up support. How many more like this in Canada also used funding and then were left behind? How far could my group and others be today if we had had early support like in the U.K., the U.S. or other countries?
I'm here to answer your questions with my best effort. Right now I will say this. Variants are emerging and the next pandemic is lurking upon us. This is not a fear argument; it is just a simple truth, and we must do better and invest for tomorrow and the future, because we can and so we must.
With my own hands I have decontaminated and prepared for burial the bodies of fathers and children, mothers and babies, all deceased from the Ebola virus disease in places without many resources.
We are very lucky here in Canada with all our resources. We can work together irrespective of gender, race, political party affiliation or religious belief. We are so very lucky to live in this amazing and wonderful country where we can recognize our gaps, where we can do better and hand in hand meet the most daunting challenges with the most innovative solutions.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Because of the fact that we're going to lose a couple of the really important witnesses here, I'm going to try to change my questions somewhat so that maybe we can get some answers later, as they could send these answers to the chair.
Dr. Nemer, you mentioned how behavioural scientists were part of the mix as far as advisers are concerned. Behavioural scientists basically look at how people are going to respond to things such as lockdowns and so on, whereas it's the mental health people who I think are really important in this issue. As the last speaker just mentioned, we have lost so much faith, and we have seen so many drastic things happening in the last number of months that I think, really, we have to be concerned about it.
We talk about international counterparts. Last week we were at 38th, and we are now 58th as far as vaccine deployment is concerned, yet we continually hear how things are just going very well. Well, they aren't going very well.
The other aspect that comes into the science discussion is, why are we not fast-tracking vaccines that have already been approved in the United Kingdom or the U.S. We talk about having to wait for Health Canada to do their due diligence. We speak about how this is an international dilemma. How are we going to manage that?
:
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses.
Madam Chair, I'll be sharing my time with MP Ehsassi, and I ask you to keep the time. I'm going to try to stick to my three minutes.
Let me start with Madam Nemer.
In your opening remarks you talked about the focus over the last year being on advice on COVID‑19. You specifically talk about the number of initiatives that you've spearheaded, starting with the multidisciplinary advisory group that has met over 40 times since March 10. You talked about the formation of the CanCOVID network, with over 3,000 members, and you touched on international partnerships you had a lot of conversations with and your recommendation for the formation of the vaccine task force. I want to focus my question on the latter two.
Specifically, can you talk about the role that you played and how involved you are? You continue to be on the vaccine task force. Specifically on the international partnerships, is there one international partner that stood out the most, that you had the most collaboration with?
Thank you.
I recommended the creation of the vaccine task force because very early on it was clear that a lot of vaccine development was under way. Actually, at some point, there were over 200 vaccines at different stages of development. There was no data on any vaccine development, certainly not things about their efficacy in human and even animal models until the summer. From my conversations with my counterparts internationally, it was clear that we were going to be running into a situation of shortages—the entire globe wants these vaccines—and it was unclear which ones were going to work. Even those countries that could produce vaccines didn't know which platforms would be available.
It was very important that we start putting in place a group that could give independent advice. Otherwise the government would have to basically rely on the private sector and others basically lobbying to get funds and lobbying to sell their products. I thought that maybe this was a situation where the scientific advice would be very helpful to the country.
I was very involved with the task force. As I said, I went to all the meetings, especially the ones where they studied and we had actually the scientists from the companies and from Canadian labs as well. We signed confidentiality agreements to be able to look at those data and make informed decisions.
I would say the countries that have similar vaccine task forces were the U.K. and—a little bit differently, perhaps—the U.S. with their Operation Warp Speed. Australia also had a vaccine task force. Eventually France also put in place a vaccine task force, as did other countries as well.
I think it was the right thing to do and the right model.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Again, thank you to the interpreters for their hard work today.
My question is for Dr. Kobinger.
As we fight against COVID-19 and think about the future, it is incumbent upon countries, now more than ever, to better prepare for the spread of a virus. As you pointed out, the next pandemic is lurking upon us.
Would you say Canada's model for fulfilling its role and meeting its objectives was effective or was it more of a missed opportunity, to use your words?
Given your experience, describe for us, if you would, what a successful model looks like.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I am very pleased to be on the industry committee, and I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
I want to take a moment at the beginning to acknowledge the efforts of the Canadian scientific and research community in diving in to try to find a solution to the COVID pandemic, and to also acknowledge the efforts of Canadian-based biopharmaceutical companies.
I heard today some good suggestions of where to go forward.
My concern is that we need to know a bit more about what happened to advice given in the past so that we don't find ourselves, six months from now, looking back again and saying, my God, why didn't we do better?
I am going to ask Madam Nemer a question and I'll try to make it as clear as I can.
We're one year into the pandemic and we find ourselves without the capacity to produce vaccine in Canada, and without the right to produce vaccines in Canada that we have contracted for. My question is a simple one. Was the government advised that it would be critical to the health of Canadians to acquire the right to produce vaccines in Canada and to establish those production facilities? If that advice was given to the government, when was that advice given?
:
Madam Chair, if I may, before answering the question, I would like to clarify something.
My good colleague, Gary Kobinger, suggested that perhaps I was not the author of the text that I read and that it was vetted by government. I want to assure everyone that I wrote it with my staff. It has not been seen by anybody in government, not the political side and not any of the ranking civil servants, so it is entirely mine and I have been completely free throughout this pandemic to express myself.
To the question that is being asked of me, the answer is yes. The advice was provided about the importance of biomanufacturing in the country. In the early summer when I appeared in front of the health committee, I did mention it publicly. I said that we are playing catch-up and that we need to be able to produce vaccines in the country.
I think I'll just stop there.
This is a question that comes up more often to me, which highlights the lack of transparency. Otherwise, people would know a lot of answers to many questions.
I myself am still learning of some apparent conflicts of interest of the task force members. Again, this past Monday I learned that some members had stock in one of the big pharmas that was discussed and disclosed it as not a conflict of interest.
I think one major issue is that there was no independent review of the conflicts of interest that were declared. This committee started in July—the first meeting was the first week of July—and was not known publicly until several weeks after that. The members were not known until several weeks after that. Then the conflicts of interest were not known until several....
I'm just going to take one second. I want to apologize to Dr. Nemer. I did not mean to accuse her of not writing the text and everything. She has very good staff.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to begin by thanking all our witnesses for taking the time to be here with us today to answer our questions, and for all their contributions to helping us get to the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least this phase we're in right now.
Dr. Nemer, thank you for being here and for everything you've done so far.
I know you had expressed concern with delaying the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, as you believe it could perhaps create or cause variants to occur or to appear. Do you still hold the same views, and have you recommended to the Government of Canada that it interfere with the provinces, such as the Province of Quebec, for example, where they are not necessarily following guidelines that have been offered by the pharmaceutical companies?
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have a question for Mr. Kobinger.
I listened to your opening remarks carefully. You were right to point out that the government's mistakes and failings had deadly consequences. As lawmakers, we must not forget that once the pandemic is behind us and it's time to dissect it all.
You said Canada's solution now relies on the NRC, a model that is not in place anywhere else in the world. From the research I've done, England and Germany seem to have the best models, which are based on co-development.
What's the best model to achieve results quickly, in the short term? In the long term, lessons may emerge in terms of how things were handled.
I'd like to hear your comments on that.
:
It's an important question, so thank you.
One model that comes to mind is a partnership between industry, which is already well-equipped to overcome a number of challenges and push ahead with vaccine production, and any academic, government or other institution with the capacity to come up with new technologies. That's a model that would produce faster results.
Nevertheless, other models do exist, such as Brazil's Instituto Butantan. The way that model works, a non-profit organization is responsible for vaccine development and manufacturing. The funding comes from government institutions insofar as they purchase the vaccines produced by the institute. However, the institute is totally independent of the government. The model is in place in other countries as well, not just Brazil.
Everyone knows I'm outspoken. What I said was not meant as a criticism of the NRC. I was simply pointing out that the model was not one I had seen elsewhere, other than the countries I mentioned. When a federal government produces vaccine doses for its citizens, it will, of course, have numerous challenges to overcome.
Although consultation is always a good idea, in this emergency, I'm a little bit worried that we're only consulting at this point.
As a former member of the board of a firefighting service, I like the firefighting analogy. In the situation we're in now it seems odd to me that we know we're going to need further capacity. We know we need to build a fire hall even if we don't know exactly where the fire is going to be. I'm concerned that we're not already launched on that path.
I want to direct this to our McMaster representatives.
I think what I heard from you today is that with an investment by the federal government we could be much farther down the path of being ready for either variants or another kind of pandemic that comes at us.
Dr. Mossman.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Of course, I just heard this story that the starting line doesn't matter much. It does matter. With the $30 billion of debt each month we are going through right now, job losses, businesses going under, the starting line does matter. I think that's one of the reasons we're 58th in the world, instead of where we normally would be, which is probably in the top 10. That's where Canada has been in the past.
We also know we can't ramp up development of our own Canadian vaccines in time. We should have been aggressively procuring vaccines last spring. There has to be a reason we're so far down the line. Can someone explain to me why the government seems to be so comforted that they've made all these deals to procure hundreds of millions of doses by next year? If we need these many for a future date, why aren't we relying on our own new domestic supply to produce them? If it looks as though we can produce a bunch in the next little while, why are we continuing to talk so comfortingly about that?
I have a final question before I give the floor to Mr. Baldinelli. What is the shelf life of each of these vaccines we have, and perhaps only those that we are producing or looking to be produced here in Canada?
I'm not sure who would like to jump in on that, but could there be a little discussion on those things?
:
Thank you for the question.
I think what's a bit alarming right now is the different narratives about CanSino and how it really came to be a project. We just heard from Dr. Nemer that it was a research project. I would challenge that. The first written recommendation I saw from the task force was about CanSino. I remember it vividly, because my first reflex was to think that we had not discussed CanSino, as we had the other one, wherein we had an exchange with the company.
I didn't know where this recommendation came from. Honestly, it was in writing to the government and then this same recommendation was turned around 180 degrees—to not recommending the CanSino—after the doses couldn't be obtained.
I don't know. Was this CanSino issue a distraction? I think so. Was it scientifically sound? I don't think so at all.
Canada, by the way, was the only western country to identify that vaccine as a possible candidate.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'm always concerned when senior public servants like Madam Nemer don't have sufficient time to spend with parliamentary committees. I have more things I would like to discuss that involve her. It always seems poor form to do so after the person has left the meeting.
We have a well-known problem in the public in people becoming tired of the epidemic and therefore not behaving as their best selves or as best citizens. I think we have another problem and I would call that COVID complacency. We are now starting to hear, “Well, we're doing our best.” For me, that's very cold comfort for people in my riding who are still continuing to lose loved ones. I have a very tourism-dependent riding. It's very cold comfort to those employed in the tourism industry who are losing their jobs and losing their small businesses because we haven't made enough progress against COVID.
The question that I will ask is a question I would have asked Madam Nemer, had she still been here.
The task force advised the government on contracts with the major companies like Pfizer. In those contracts, I'm afraid we don't have the assurances that if there's a third wave or it requires a change of vaccines.... Those contracts, as we've seen with the EU, only specify best efforts from the companies. They're not actually contracts to provide certain amounts of vaccine by a certain date.
Maybe Professor Kobinger knows a bit more about this. I am concerned. Without being an alarmist, I'm concerned that things could still go very wrong here in terms of vaccine deliveries.
Professor Kobinger, can you comment on the issue of contracts and whether they are contracts for delivery?
:
I've tried to point out all the successes and the fantastic agreements that have been reached. That said, if you want to make things better for next time, you must know where to focus your efforts.
You must acknowledge that opportunities were missed and that CanSino was a scientific boondoggle at all levels, in my opinion, and even a conflict of interest for a co-chair of the task force.
You said that Canada ranks 58th. That's unfortunate, and we shouldn't be there. What I find even more unfortunate is that there's a disconnect between what we're seeing on the ground and what we're hearing. According to Ms. Nemer, everything is fine, everything is resolved and everything is all right. That's why I said that her remarks seemed to have been reviewed by the government. The president of the National Research Council of Canada made the same remarks on Monday when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Health. However, we aren't seeing this situation on the ground. People don't have access to vaccines. People are dying from COVID‑19. In Quebec, 16 health care workers have died from it and there have been 33,000 infections. These 16 deaths could have been prevented.
You must acknowledge this and address the situation for next time, so that more people don't die when they could have been saved.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses for their testimony today and, in fact, for their enthusiasm for what Canada has to offer the world in terms of vaccine production and therapeutics.
I'd like to quote from a previous witness, however, and some of you may know him. Professor Attaran at our meeting on February 16 said that Canada “is simply the least scientifically competent country I've ever come across.”
Dr. Mossman, could you please, as an academic, tell me what you think of the scientific competence here in Canada?
:
It is my time, Mr. Taylor.
I'd like to follow up on the issue of collaboration with you, Dr. Mossman, and potentially with you, Mr. Taylor.
I was most interested in hearing what you had to say.
Dr. Nemer told us that, in her view or to her knowledge, there were some 200 vaccines under potential development in Canada, so the task force had a mammoth task, presumably, to filter through all these and look at clinical data and so on.
Would you not see collaboration between proponents, academia and manufacturing facilities as a way forward, and could you elaborate on how that might be operationalized?
:
Yes, I would like to comment. I think the questions around Canadian scientific abilities are not correct.
First, I'll give some examples. For example, the leading antibody therapeutic was developed here in Canada. The leading technologies for the delivery of the RNA vaccines were developed here in Canada. Canada has tremendous scientific abilities.
I think this panel is very helpful for understanding what we could have done better or what happened, but I think also we could be looking at what unique opportunities have arisen out of this crisis.
In times of crisis, interesting things happen. We've seen technologies like the ones we're involved in, others in Canada and other good companies, institutions and academics around RNA vaccines or other vaccine technologies. We should be thinking hard about how we capitalize on this opportunity, in addition to trying to get through the current major challenge we have, and really build the Canada we want for the future around these new abilities.
That brings us to the end of the third round.
I'd like to thank all of the witnesses and our MPs today for excellent questions and excellent testimony. This has been very helpful for us.
With that, I will bid you adieu and thank you for your time today.
Before we adjourn, I want to remind the members of Parliament to please get their witness lists for the aerospace industry study to the clerk preferably by end of day tomorrow so that we can start inviting folks and make sure that the headsets that they require have time to get to them. Please send your lists to the clerk in priority order preferably. It doesn't need to be a complete list. If you have additional witnesses you'd like to include after, feel free to send those along.
Again, thank you to the clerk, to our analysts and to everyone in the room that makes everything that we do possible.
[Translation]
I want to sincerely thank the interpreters for their work.
[English]
With that, this meeting is adjourned.