Third COVID vaccine on track for approval

OTTAWA • Health Canada is on track to approve a third COVID-19 vaccine within the next two weeks and a fourth may not be far behind, offering a glimmer of hope at the end of a week of nothing but vaccine vexation.

Health Canada said Friday the regulatory team that has been reviewing an application from Astrazeneca since Oct. 1 is just awaiting final submissions from the drugmaker on manufacturing processes before making its decision.

Astrazeneca was the first to apply for approval for a COVID-19 vaccine in Canada and has been green-lit in 15 jurisdictions including the u.k., India, and as of Friday, the entire European union.

dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser, said earlier this month the review was “a bit more complicated” because in Astrazeneca’s trials, some volunteers only received a half-dose at first.

A fourth vaccine could be close as well, after Johnson and Johnson reported Friday that Phase 3 clinical trial results showed its vaccine is about 85-per-cent effective against serious illness from COVID-19. Johnson and Johnson, which submitted an application to Canada for approval Nov. 30, offers the only single-dose vaccine thus far.

Canada has pre-ordered 10 million doses from Johnson and Johnson with the potential to get 28 million more, and 20 million doses from Astrazeneca. But the government has not said when those doses would be delivered.

Moderna became the third vaccine-maker in two weeks Friday to announce production delays will cut into its deliveries. The Massachusetts-based biotech firm shipped more than 340,000 doses to Canada in the last month, but next week’s shipment is getting cut by about one-fifth, or 50,000 fewer doses, because of slower-than-expected production of the drug components.

Moderna’s Canadian manager Patricia Gauthier said the company will ship two millions doses by the end of March. Canada bought 40 million doses from Moderna overall, with most of them contracted to arrive between April 1 and Sept. 30.

This week a temporary production slowdown also caused Pfizer and Biontech to cancel an entire shipment of more than 208,000 doses, after cutting last week’s shipment by about 20 per cent. The next two weeks’ deliveries will be cut by about 80 per cent before mostly being restored the week of Feb. 15.

Astrazeneca is cutting deliveries to Europe by 60 per cent through the end of March because of production problems in Belgium. That, coupled with Pfizer’s delays, prompted the Eu to require vaccine makers to report on how many doses are being produced and exported from Europe.

Canada is not among more than 120 countries exempted from the export controls, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said European Commission president ursula von der Leyen assured him Canada won’t be affected.