The Conservatives Sold Off Our Vaccine Lab, The Liberals Are Scrambling To Bring It Back.
- Thread starter glamphotographer
- Start date
Of course if you read the article the lab is STILL operational and would NOT have been converted to covid easily or at all as it produces other needed vaccines.
Connaught was in a "financially weak position" when then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau nationalized the operation in the 1970s, Brown said.
Sanofi, one of the largest vaccine makers in the world, continues to operate the Connaught campus in Toronto, where it produces the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines. The Canadian operation also packages the polio vaccine using material from the company's French factories. Most of those shots are destined for countries abroad.
The facility couldn't easily be retooled now to tackle COVID-19, Brown said.
"They really don't have any culture of animal cell lines going here in Canada," he said of the material needed to make some of the COVID-19 vaccines.
And with so many of its current products on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines, Sanofi couldn't retool the Toronto plant to focus on COVID-19 alone — not when its vaccines are needed to address other health concerns. (A recent $415-million federal investment will expand Sanofi's production capacity for future pandemics.)
Connaught was in a "financially weak position" when then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau nationalized the operation in the 1970s, Brown said.
Sanofi, one of the largest vaccine makers in the world, continues to operate the Connaught campus in Toronto, where it produces the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines. The Canadian operation also packages the polio vaccine using material from the company's French factories. Most of those shots are destined for countries abroad.
The facility couldn't easily be retooled now to tackle COVID-19, Brown said.
"They really don't have any culture of animal cell lines going here in Canada," he said of the material needed to make some of the COVID-19 vaccines.
And with so many of its current products on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines, Sanofi couldn't retool the Toronto plant to focus on COVID-19 alone — not when its vaccines are needed to address other health concerns. (A recent $415-million federal investment will expand Sanofi's production capacity for future pandemics.)
It's brand new. Guaranteed that they will increase capacity. I know that you have faith.
I don't have faith in any government project, regardless of party.
But let's hope this time I am wrong. It's to important to Canada's future.
Nonsense, The CBC are just shills for the liberal party.
Paul Lucas, former CEO of Glaxo Smith Klein for 16 years wrote a scathing article in the Financial Post in January of 2021 stating the GSK has a lab in Quebec City
As the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline Canada (GSK) for 16 years, now retired for nine, I was deeply involved in the production and distribution of the Canadian vaccine for the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, working collaboratively with public health and other government officials. All the vaccine for that pandemic was produced in the GSK factory in Quebec City. The campaign, after a few initial snags, was a tremendous success. The vaccine was developed, rolled out and injected into millions of Canadians in just several months.
I felt compelled to write about the current vaccine supply situation when federal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic Leblanc erroneously stated on CTV’s Power Play that we don’t have any domestic vaccine production in Canada because “GSK closed its facility during the Harper years.” In fact, that facility is still operational and manufactures much of Canada’s annual flu vaccine.
As of this writing Canada ranks tenth in the world in COVID vaccine doses administered per 100 population. This is surprising considering Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has consistently stated that “We are better on vaccines than just about every other country.”
The provinces have worked out their logistics issues and are not the problem. The problem is clearly that the federal government is not able to procure significant doses of vaccine until April. Canada will receive 1.2 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine by the end of January and six million doses by the end of March. That will allow the vaccination of approximately three million citizens — less than 10 per cent of the population. Many other countries have received significantly more vaccine on a population-adjusted basis. The question is: Why is Canada not able to acquire more vaccine early?
Is it because the Liberal government has virtually no relationship other than as a buyer and regulator with the only organizations that could possibly produce a vaccine quickly and in sufficient quantities, the global innovative pharmaceutical industry?
There was also another scathing article in the Globe and Mail which pointed the finger squarely at the Justin Trudeau Liberals and how they failed to act to support domestic manufacturers and bio medical companies
Canada lags the developed world in COVID-19 vaccinations because it provided insufficient upfront funding to the smaller domestic companies that had potential inoculations in their pipeline, vaccine developers told a federal Parliamentary committee on Monday.
Had the federal government taken the approach of the United States and the United Kingdom, which provided hundreds of millions of dollars to companies with potential candidates early in the pandemic, the country would be on the cusp of making homegrown COVID-19 vaccines, John Lewis, an Edmonton-based biotechnology executive, told MPs.
Mr. Lewis, the chief executive officer of Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc., told the House of Commons health committee the “decisive and upfront funding” made available by those two countries was “key to both their success and their speed.”
Tracking Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout plans: A continuing guide
Coronavirus tracker: How many COVID-19 cases are there in Canada and worldwide? The latest maps and charts
The National Research Council of Canada distributed a total of $23-million through its industrial research assistance program to domestic vaccine developers, up to a maximum of $5-million, Mr. Lewis said.
The federal government “took a careful, risk averse and committee-based decision approach that led to a relatively modest amount of scattered funding for companies in Canada to develop domestic vaccines,” he said. Mr. Lewis said this put all of the financial risk of vaccine development onto the small companies, which he said was a “mistake.”
Entos is developing a vaccine candidate and has received some of the federal money. While some of the smaller companies have production facilities, Canada currently has limited ability to mass-produce vaccines. This issue was not discussed at the committee meeting.
Gary Kobinger, a microbiologist who developed the vaccine for Ebola and briefly sat on the federal government’s vaccine task force, also testified that not enough funds were made available for domestic vaccine candidates. He compared Canada’s approach to the hundreds of millions of dollars the United Kingdom invested last spring in AstraZeneca’s proposed vaccine. “In our country, we’ve got a different approach. Money is sprinkled here and there, but there’s no follow-up,” he said.
As Canada trails many of its peer countries in rates of vaccination, lawmakers are focusing mainly on why it has not kept pace. Much of Monday’s parliamentary hearing focused on Canada’s vaccination efforts, and what the government might have done to position itself better.
The federal government has deals to buy vaccines from seven pharmaceutical companies, only one of which, Medicago Inc., is based in Canada. Health Canada has approved only two – from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Mr. Lewis told MPs: “Expecting other countries to develop and manufacture vaccines and not prioritize their own population over other countries was, I think, a little misguided.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne did not respond directly to Mr. Lewis’s criticisms, but said Entos had received funds through two federal programs: $5-million from the NRC and a $4.2-million grant. The money is being used for Entos’s Phase 1 clinical trial, but Mr. Lewis told lawmakers he believes his company’s vaccine candidate could have been in the final phase of trials had the government invested more and sooner.
Mr. Champagne’s spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement that the government’s decisions about what companies to fund have been driven by its volunteer vaccine and therapeutics task forces, and Ottawa has “pursued the most promising opportunities to build resilience in Canada’s future supply of vaccines and therapeutics.”
People involved with the U.S. vaccination program have said immediately available government money for producers was an important part of a historically quick development of vaccines.
Two officials involved with the U.S. vaccine program, Operation Warp Speed, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine: “With heavy upfront investment, companies can conduct clinical operations and site preparation for ... Phase 3 efficacy trials even as they file their [evidence] for their Phase 1 studies.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also provided about US$2-billion to vaccine manufacturers Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and AstraZeneca between March and May.
An investigation from the U.K. National Audit Office found that, through 2020, the U.K. government provided “upfront payments of £914 million” for five vaccine contracts and that “these payments have been used to start manufacturing and to support clinical trials.”
In Canada, the federal government announced in March it was making $192-million available through its Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). However, The Globe has learned that money is paid only for expenses incurred, and not provided in advance.
John Power, a spokesperson for Mr. Champagne, said: “The SIF is a claims-based program. The SIF provides the certainty needed for companies taking on major projects, including running clinical trials and building biomanufacturing capacity at scale. It also provides accountability for the spending of public funds, which Canadians expect.”
Since that March announcement, the government has committed a total of $468-million in funding through the SIF for various projects through to 2022.
When the fund was unveiled in March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that one of its beneficiaries would be Medicago, which is based in Quebec City.
A news release said the “funding will allow Medicago to rapidly move forward on clinical trials and then quickly shift to scaling up production for pandemic response.”
Medicago said it didn’t receive the funds until October, when it signed its agreement with the federal government to supply 76 million doses of its vaccine candidate.
I
Paul Lucas, former CEO of Glaxo Smith Klein for 16 years wrote a scathing article in the Financial Post in January of 2021 stating the GSK has a lab in Quebec City
As the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline Canada (GSK) for 16 years, now retired for nine, I was deeply involved in the production and distribution of the Canadian vaccine for the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, working collaboratively with public health and other government officials. All the vaccine for that pandemic was produced in the GSK factory in Quebec City. The campaign, after a few initial snags, was a tremendous success. The vaccine was developed, rolled out and injected into millions of Canadians in just several months.
I felt compelled to write about the current vaccine supply situation when federal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic Leblanc erroneously stated on CTV’s Power Play that we don’t have any domestic vaccine production in Canada because “GSK closed its facility during the Harper years.” In fact, that facility is still operational and manufactures much of Canada’s annual flu vaccine.
As of this writing Canada ranks tenth in the world in COVID vaccine doses administered per 100 population. This is surprising considering Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has consistently stated that “We are better on vaccines than just about every other country.”
The provinces have worked out their logistics issues and are not the problem. The problem is clearly that the federal government is not able to procure significant doses of vaccine until April. Canada will receive 1.2 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine by the end of January and six million doses by the end of March. That will allow the vaccination of approximately three million citizens — less than 10 per cent of the population. Many other countries have received significantly more vaccine on a population-adjusted basis. The question is: Why is Canada not able to acquire more vaccine early?
Is it because the Liberal government has virtually no relationship other than as a buyer and regulator with the only organizations that could possibly produce a vaccine quickly and in sufficient quantities, the global innovative pharmaceutical industry?
There was also another scathing article in the Globe and Mail which pointed the finger squarely at the Justin Trudeau Liberals and how they failed to act to support domestic manufacturers and bio medical companies
Canada lags the developed world in COVID-19 vaccinations because it provided insufficient upfront funding to the smaller domestic companies that had potential inoculations in their pipeline, vaccine developers told a federal Parliamentary committee on Monday.
Had the federal government taken the approach of the United States and the United Kingdom, which provided hundreds of millions of dollars to companies with potential candidates early in the pandemic, the country would be on the cusp of making homegrown COVID-19 vaccines, John Lewis, an Edmonton-based biotechnology executive, told MPs.
Mr. Lewis, the chief executive officer of Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc., told the House of Commons health committee the “decisive and upfront funding” made available by those two countries was “key to both their success and their speed.”
Tracking Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout plans: A continuing guide
Coronavirus tracker: How many COVID-19 cases are there in Canada and worldwide? The latest maps and charts
The National Research Council of Canada distributed a total of $23-million through its industrial research assistance program to domestic vaccine developers, up to a maximum of $5-million, Mr. Lewis said.
The federal government “took a careful, risk averse and committee-based decision approach that led to a relatively modest amount of scattered funding for companies in Canada to develop domestic vaccines,” he said. Mr. Lewis said this put all of the financial risk of vaccine development onto the small companies, which he said was a “mistake.”
Entos is developing a vaccine candidate and has received some of the federal money. While some of the smaller companies have production facilities, Canada currently has limited ability to mass-produce vaccines. This issue was not discussed at the committee meeting.
Gary Kobinger, a microbiologist who developed the vaccine for Ebola and briefly sat on the federal government’s vaccine task force, also testified that not enough funds were made available for domestic vaccine candidates. He compared Canada’s approach to the hundreds of millions of dollars the United Kingdom invested last spring in AstraZeneca’s proposed vaccine. “In our country, we’ve got a different approach. Money is sprinkled here and there, but there’s no follow-up,” he said.
As Canada trails many of its peer countries in rates of vaccination, lawmakers are focusing mainly on why it has not kept pace. Much of Monday’s parliamentary hearing focused on Canada’s vaccination efforts, and what the government might have done to position itself better.
The federal government has deals to buy vaccines from seven pharmaceutical companies, only one of which, Medicago Inc., is based in Canada. Health Canada has approved only two – from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Mr. Lewis told MPs: “Expecting other countries to develop and manufacture vaccines and not prioritize their own population over other countries was, I think, a little misguided.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne did not respond directly to Mr. Lewis’s criticisms, but said Entos had received funds through two federal programs: $5-million from the NRC and a $4.2-million grant. The money is being used for Entos’s Phase 1 clinical trial, but Mr. Lewis told lawmakers he believes his company’s vaccine candidate could have been in the final phase of trials had the government invested more and sooner.
Mr. Champagne’s spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement that the government’s decisions about what companies to fund have been driven by its volunteer vaccine and therapeutics task forces, and Ottawa has “pursued the most promising opportunities to build resilience in Canada’s future supply of vaccines and therapeutics.”
People involved with the U.S. vaccination program have said immediately available government money for producers was an important part of a historically quick development of vaccines.
Two officials involved with the U.S. vaccine program, Operation Warp Speed, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine: “With heavy upfront investment, companies can conduct clinical operations and site preparation for ... Phase 3 efficacy trials even as they file their [evidence] for their Phase 1 studies.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also provided about US$2-billion to vaccine manufacturers Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and AstraZeneca between March and May.
An investigation from the U.K. National Audit Office found that, through 2020, the U.K. government provided “upfront payments of £914 million” for five vaccine contracts and that “these payments have been used to start manufacturing and to support clinical trials.”
In Canada, the federal government announced in March it was making $192-million available through its Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). However, The Globe has learned that money is paid only for expenses incurred, and not provided in advance.
John Power, a spokesperson for Mr. Champagne, said: “The SIF is a claims-based program. The SIF provides the certainty needed for companies taking on major projects, including running clinical trials and building biomanufacturing capacity at scale. It also provides accountability for the spending of public funds, which Canadians expect.”
Since that March announcement, the government has committed a total of $468-million in funding through the SIF for various projects through to 2022.
When the fund was unveiled in March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that one of its beneficiaries would be Medicago, which is based in Quebec City.
A news release said the “funding will allow Medicago to rapidly move forward on clinical trials and then quickly shift to scaling up production for pandemic response.”
Medicago said it didn’t receive the funds until October, when it signed its agreement with the federal government to supply 76 million doses of its vaccine candidate.
I
Last edited:
There really needs to be an investigation into the bungling of the vaccination procurement (or lack thereof) by the Trudeau liberals. It's criminal negligence already.
It's unforgiveable how utterly incompetent Justin Trudeau is. He has completely dropped the ball on the issue right from the get go. All he is capable of doing is standing up at some podium every other day and lecturing Canadians to wear a mask and keep 6 feet apart. Big fucking deal. The guy is completely and utterly useless.
Here's another article in the Globe and Mail about how Trudeau can company passed over private sector plans to produce vaccine domestically.
It's unforgiveable already.
The only thing the Justin Trudeau liberals are "scrambling" to do is run massive deficits to finance one blackhole pet social spending project or another or fund WE charities.
It's unforgiveable how utterly incompetent Justin Trudeau is. He has completely dropped the ball on the issue right from the get go. All he is capable of doing is standing up at some podium every other day and lecturing Canadians to wear a mask and keep 6 feet apart. Big fucking deal. The guy is completely and utterly useless.
Here's another article in the Globe and Mail about how Trudeau can company passed over private sector plans to produce vaccine domestically.
It's unforgiveable already.
The only thing the Justin Trudeau liberals are "scrambling" to do is run massive deficits to finance one blackhole pet social spending project or another or fund WE charities.
Last edited:
probably but it
Won’t be the self declared most open and transparent government the liberals will just shut down any committee investigating them
Which (if your speculation is actually accurate) is small potatoes compared to having the ability to develop and manufacture our own vaccines and not having to rely on other countries. At least until the Cons sell it off again.
First my comment that you quoted Was regarding any committee investigations that the liberals will and do shut down
And it wasn’t a speculation if you bothered to read the article it clearly states the lab exists and would be unable to manufacture the Covid vaccine because it has other world health organization priority commitments and it’s not physically set up for that type of vaccine
