Farmscape for May 30, 2022
| Full Interview 6:29 | Listen  |
The Director and CEO of VIDO expects a new in-house pilot scale vaccine manufacturing facility to be making vaccines by the fourth quarter of this year. The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan, is developing an in-house pilot scale vaccine manufacturing facility. Construction is almost finished and commissioning is expected to be complete by late summer or early fall which will hopefully allow vaccine manufacturing in the fourth quarter of this year. VIDO Director and CEO Dr. Volker Gerdts says, in the past, manufacturing of VIDO’s vaccine technologies have been handled by contract manufacturers which works but slows down the process.
Clip-Dr. Volker Gerdts-Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization:
Pilot scale facilities are really needed to take technologies from the lab into the clinical phase.
Canada does not have a lot of pilot scale facilities so this facility will really help not only VIDO but everyone in the country to use this facility and get their products quickly manufactured and then tested in the clinical phase. It will significantly cut down time in the development of these vaccines. Especially small biotechs who often don’t have the financial resources to build their own facilities will be able to use this facility and we will manufacture the vaccine for them and them help them to get it tested. It’s really something that the country needs. You can see right now around the world many other countries are building pilot scale and commercial manufacturing facilities as we all know that during pandemics you need to have enough for sufficient domestic capacity to make vaccines so that you don’t find yourself in a situation again like Canada did where we had to essentially import all vaccines for Canadians.
Dr. Gerdts says by adding this new manufacturing capacity at VIDO, the country will be better prepared for future emerging diseases, whether they are animal or human diseases.
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