A Canadian firm recently said it is on track in producing around 50 million doses of its vaccine for COVID-19 this year, which, if approved, could provide Canada's vaccine supply with a much-needed boost to combat the pandemic.
Providence Therapeutics, a Calgary-based vaccine maker, is still in its early phases of clinical tests for its mRNA vaccine candidate. However, Manitoba province already announced a purchase deal with the company.
According to Providence Therapeutics chair of the board, Ken Hughes, the company "can have millions of doses of messenger-RNA vaccine by this fall" and that, they are "on that path now."
To start in July, the firm announced they could produce around 50,000 vials a day, with each vial containing 10 doses.
The company CEO, Brad Sorenson said, the total capacity they could produce this year would be 50 million doses.
Manitoba to Purchase 2 Million Doses
Providence also announced they are currently receiving orders from provinces, and more information on such orders will be unveiled in the coming days.
A week ago, the government of Manitoba announced it had committed purchase of two million doses of this Canadian COVID-19 vaccine.
Moreover, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has floated the idea of securing their own supply of the vaccine as well.
Despite delays in vaccine supplies from companies like Pfizer and Moderna, and a slow start to rollout of Canada, pressure, according to Global News has reportedly been mounting on a federal government to increase the capacity of vaccine manufacturing.
Pharmaceutical firms contend that having domestic manufacturers backed by domestic governments could help in protecting Canadians from worldwide vaccine trade wars.
Never again, Hughes said should we have to depend on other nations for vaccines. Relatively, domestic vaccine-makers like Providence Therapeutics have urged for more assistance from Ottawa.
Growing Spread of Variants
With worries over the growing spread of variants, Sorenson explained, the Canadian firm aims to fast-track its "work on booster doses for the variants."
The PTX-COVID19-B, a prospective vaccine used for Canada's human trial, kicked off in Toronto late last month.
Meanwhile, specifically, in a January 26 release, Providence announced its vaccine is the first fully-made in the country to reach human clinical test phase.
The biotech firm said that a group of 60 volunteers in the Phase I trial will be observed for a 13-month period, although adequate data needs to be collected by April to move ahead to a Phase II trial by May, pending approval from regulatory authorities.
COVID-19 Vaccine Update
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier this month that a tentative deal with American vaccine manufacturer Novavax for the production of its product in a new "National Research Council facility going up in Montreal" if the vaccine for COVID-19 gets authorized for use there.
However, that building will not be completed until summer. Not to mention, the new doses would not likely begin being pumped out until late fall, at the earliest. This is long after the country is expected to be importing adequate doses to vaccinate the whole population.
During the last meeting of the industry committee in early February, Procurement Minister Anita Anand said COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers that "Canada signed contracts with last summer" were asked if they could produce the doses in Canada and everyone concluded they could not.
Anand added, her department proactively, not to mention, repeatedly reached out to leading COVID-19 vaccine makers.
Following a month of silence, Canada is expected to get a major boost in its delivery of shots this week from Prizer-BioNTech.
Canada's Public Health Agency said early this week it expects the two pharmaceutical firms to deliver over 400,000 doses this week and another 475,000 after a slowdown as Pfizer expanded its production plant in Belgium.
Canada has invested over $1 billion in all to have access to a maximum of 414 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from seven different vaccine makers.
However, only two of these vaccines, one from BioNTech and another from Moderna, have been authorized by Health Canada.
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