Canada missed chance to help homegrown vaccines move quickly last spring: developers

OTTAWA — Two vaccine developers in Canada say a lack of federal funding early in the pandemic kept homegrown vaccines from moving as quickly as international versions.

John Lewis, the CEO of Entos Pharmaceuticals in Alberta, says his company is one of six that received about $5 million to move their COVID-19 vaccine along.

But Lewis says other countries invested more than $300 million per company to ensure they had funding to get through the entire vaccine development process.

“Most importantly, it allowed these companies to move quickly and boldly without financial risk. This is a key difference between these efforts and Canada’s domestic vaccine response,” he said.

“We took a careful, risk-adverse and committee-based decision approach that led to a relatively modest amount of scattered funding for companies in Canada to develop domestic vaccine. This put the financial risk of vaccine development and our country’s national security on them, which I think was a mistake.”

Related article: Health Canada not ready yet to greenlight AstraZeneca vaccine

He says those companies, such as AstraZeneca and Pfizer, now have vaccines approved in dozens of countries.

Speaking to the House of Commons health committee today, Lewis says Canada still has no vaccine through the finish line.

Dr. Gary Kobinger, a microbiologist at Laval University who was part of Canadian teams that helped develop vaccines for Ebola and Zika says his non-profit had a vaccine with excellent early lab results a year ago, but it stalled because of lack of money.

“We had a vaccine against COVID, which is the same platform that we knew worked against SARS-1 in the early 2000s … It was ready in mid-February of 2020, and we couldn’t find funding,” he said.

Related article: Canada to receive record 640K vaccine doses this week with Pfizer, Moderna deliveries

in the House of Commons today, deputy Conservative Leader Candice Bergen questioned why the government’s vaccination program is moving so slowly.

“Public health officers across the country are warning about a third wave and new variants pose a new threat. Why has the prime minister’s massive vaccine failure left Canadians so vulnerable to continued lockdowns and a third wave of COVID-19?” she asked.

But Procurement Minister Anita Anand says Canada’s vaccination program is taking on considerable speed and is on track.

“I’m happy to announce to this House of Commons today that we will be receiving half a million-plus vaccines in this country just this week alone, Mr. Speaker. We are on a very steep ramp-up.”