Restore funding for AIDS vaccine, researchers urge

$34M for national network was rejected in July Federal officials are trying to ‘make sure this work is not lost’

The federal government is working to ensure a national network of researchers developing groundbreaking vaccines for diseases such as AIDS and SARS continues to get funding. No final decision has been made but “ absolutely, people are working to find a way to make sure this work is not lost,” Ian Jack, a spokesman for Industry Minister David Emerson, told the Toronto Star yesterday. “ It is recognition we would like to see this good work continue.” The Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics ( CANVAC), one of the federal government’s prestigious Networks of Centres of Excellence, learned in July that the networks’ steering committee had rejected its request for $34 million over the next seven years. The networks operate independent of government interference, even though they are federally funded.

Although CANVAC will keep getting federal funds, it will no longer be a part of the networks and won’t exist in the same way, Jack said.

“ We are looking at alternative sources of funding to ensure vaccine research in Canada continues at an appropriate level,” he said. The networks had “ administrative” issues with how CANVAC operated, he said, but “ I don’t think anyone was critical of the scientists in the labs and what they were doing in vaccine research. Absolutely, the work is important.” Today in Montreal, AIDS experts from around the world were going to urge the federal government to restore funding to the vaccine network. The officials, including the heads of HIV-AIDS vaccine programs in the United States and Europe working in an international collaboration to find a vaccine against the deadly virus, were to take part in a news conference as part of the 2005 AIDS Vaccine International conference, being hosted by CANVAC. They cancelled it when word came of the federal government’s desire to keep funding it.

Dr. Rafick- Pierre Sékaly, CANVAC’s executive director, met with officials from Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Prime Minister’s Office yesterday and they all indicated they were trying to find a solution, he said in an interview.

“ We are having such a good level of understanding with the federal government that we decided to be very conservative,” he said.

“ I think they are in a very positive frame of mind to find a solution as early as November.” CANVAC supports 72 researchers and their teams across Canada, 34 of them in Ontario, specializing in immunology, virology and molecular biology. Collaborating with pharmaceutical companies, they are also developing potential vaccines for cancer and emerging illnesses such as SARS and a pandemic flu outbreak.

Already, 80 of the most prestigious organizations around the world have written to the government to protest the funding cancellation because they want to work with the network, he said. CANVAC has agreements with pharmaceutical giants in Canada, France and Switzerland that have poured several million dollars into developing and testing vaccines for SARS and hepatitis C, as well as HIV- AIDS. Seven vaccines were ready for clinical trials beginning next year. As CANVAC’s initial $30 million, sevenyear grant ended, an international panel of vaccine experts highly recommended extending the funding, plus $4 million more for clinical trials. But an independent review committee of officials from other networks of excellence rejected the proposal and the steering committee of the networks backed their conclusions.

While it never discloses its reasons, CANVAC members say the committee didn’t think the network would be able to generate enough money to exist independently after 14 years, as required. More than 850 AIDS researchers are attending the Montreal conference.