‘FUMBLE AND FLOUNDER’
Little more than smoke and mirrors
This week, Prime minister Justin trudeau announced two deals designed to produce covid-19 vaccines on canadian soil by the end of the year. But even that timeline — which won’t see canadian-produced vaccines until well after the government’s self-imposed deadline of having enough doses to vaccinate the entire population by september — is unlikely to be met, according to an expert with many years’ experience in the industry.
one deal he announced is with novavax, a vaccine manufacturer that says it will produce vaccines at a national Research council (nrc) facility in montreal. But the facility has not yet been built, nor has the manufacturing process been certified for safety, or even licensed by Health canada.
the second deal is with Precision nanosystems in Vancouver. trudeau said ottawa will contribute $25.1 million in tax dollars to help the company build a new facility. the company itself estimates it will be in production in 2023.
This is too little, too late, according to one of the world’s most successful pharmaceutical entrepreneurs, Leslie dan, who founded the Toronto-based pharmaceutical company Novopharm, which he sold to Teva Pharmaceutical in 2000. He also ran Viventia biotech, which is involved in cancer research and treatments, and owned a vaccine manufacturing company, which was sold to Glaxo. In other words, he knows what he’s talking about, and he sees this week’s announcements as highly problematic.
“What does the PM know about vaccine manufacturing plants?” dan said in an interview with the National Post. “The setting up of a vaccine plant to treat COVID is a highly specialized operation, even if the know-how is provided.
“It will likely take at least two years by the time the Canadian-first vaccine will roll off. by that time, many changes may happen, such as the virus may be gone or further mutate, or there will be no more major vaccine needs, or many more well-established vaccine manufacturers will gear up production and provide excessive amounts of vaccines at highly competitive prices.”
dan believes the public is entitled to know when we can realistically expect to see Canadian-made doses of vaccine roll off the assembly line and how much it will end up costing taxpayers. “I am not saying that Canada should not have a vaccine plant,” he clarified. “I merely emphasize the absolute need to do a thorough and comprehensive feasibility study before we plunge into a project, which may well be a Johnny-come-lately undertaking, which is the trademark of our PM.”
Canada’s vaccine rollout is a disaster because Trudeau placed too much stock in a bad deal his government made with China that caused him to delay signing deals with Pfizer and Moderna.
“How many lives will be lost as this government continues to fumble and flounder?” asked dan. “In Canada, only about two per cent of our population has been vaccinated. Israel has vaccinated 56 per cent. Why should the Canadian public accept this negligence and poor oversight?”
He added that getting into vaccine manufacturing is a highly complex process. Feasibility studies on all aspects of the plant and its operations must be done by experienced consultants. Post-construction testing of several batches can take many months to complete. Approval from Health Canada can add further delay.
Industry sources raise another issue: in the spring, Precision Nanosystems announced that it was co-developing a vaccine with Cansino biologics — the Chinese vaccine maker that reneged on its deal with Canada after getting NRC intellectual property for free, which it used to develop vaccines for ebola and SARS-COV-2.
(rumours in the industry are that the Cansino deal fell through after China tried to use its vaccine as leverage to get Canada to release
Huawei heiress Meng Wanzhou, who is currently being held in Vancouver while she fights extradition to the united States.)
Science writer Iris Kulbatski pointed out the link and wrote: “There was no mention of Cansino’s involvement in today’s announcement, either because this deal too has since fallen through or else it’s right on track and the information is being kept quiet.”
At the very least, Canadians deserve to know if Precision Nanosystems is still working with Cansino and if China’s decision to block the export of vaccines to Canada affected the work that it is doing.
Trudeau is now throwing around questionable promises to distract from his disastrous COVID-19 response. Lives are at stake and the economy is in the tank due to lockdowns that have only been required because Trudeau’s government has unforgivably dropped the ball. It’s about time that the opposition parties band together to throw out this government and force an election.