Alberta to invest in establishing vaccine production capacity

By Tim Kalinowski on March 10, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

Alberta will be making substantial investments to establish its own vaccine production and manufacturing capacity both for the immediate COVID-19 need and for potential future pandemics.
“This pandemic has really opened a lot of eyes as to the vulnerability of supply chains around the world,” Doug Schweitzer, Alberta Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation, told The Herald in a recent interview. “We have invested heavily to make sure we have domestic food security and supply. We invest in our military for national security, and this pandemic has really made us aware we have to invest in domestic production of critical healthcare products. We have done that with masks and PPE leveraging the buying power of Alberta Health Services, and now we are seeking proposals on how we can further develop out the foundation we have in domestic production and the development and manufacturing of vaccines.”
Schweitzer said the rise of vaccine nationalism in recent months is another factor in the timing of this decision.
“We all thought we had trade agreements and the free-flowing of goods, but this pandemic, from the freezing of PPE on tarmac, countries not allowing vaccines to leave their borders, it has really brought to bear the need for us to think this through at a provincial as well as a national level here in Canada,” he stated. “We at the provincial level are responsible for health spending; so we can leverage our balance sheet.”
The government is in the process of accepting proposals from the Alberta-based bio-medical research and manufacturing industry on how best to leverage government funds to achieve this ambition.
Schweitzer said funds will be drawn from the Alberta government’s $1.2 billion COVID contingency fund and $500 million in funds set aside for Alberta’s Economic Recovery Plan as Alberta positions itself as a significant player in the production of vaccines in the future by creating such a facility. Schweitzer said there was also an obvious economic diversification piece to this investment.
“This opportunity here ticks both boxes,” he confirmed. “So we want to see what the proposals are. There are lots of different ways you can structure this as a purchase order to, providing grants, loans, equity investments, and we really want to see what the proposals are that come in, and at that point in time we will assess them and make decisions on our end.
“We are thinking through this from a long term perspective when it comes to the ability to develop booster shots, to deal with variants, building the capacity to deal with future potential pandemics,” Schweitzer added. “Hopefully, we don’t have to live through another one of these in my lifetime, but it’s a very good insurance policy as well to make sure to protect the health of your citizens here in Alberta. So we are making sure we are looking at this through a new lens, and learning the lessons from the pandemic.”
University of Lethbridge biochemistry researcher Trushar Patel welcomed the announcement by the province.
“I am excited that this is happening, but I wish it would have happened a bit earlier,” he said. “But nevertheless, it is happening, and I am excited about it.
“I hope a substantial portion of that (COVID-19) fund will be set aside to establish the Alberta facility that will then allow a substantial amount of research work for a vaccine as well as a production and manufacturing unit as well,” Patel added. “If we set it up now for this pandemic to combat SARS Cov2 (COVID), we can then transition once we are out of this pandemic, and no longer need to produce this vaccine when everybody is vaccinated, we can move on to manufacture other vaccines. And then we can attack other viral diseases or any other area we need to develop vaccines against.”
Patel said establishing such a vaccine manufacturing facility would push Alberta to the forefront of this emerging and important sector.
“There is only a handful of these facilities in North America,” he stated; “so it puts us on the global map to have our own vaccine manufacturing facility.”
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