Manitoba's vaccine deal won't solve short-term supply issues, company acknowledges

WINNIPEG -- Manitobans should have realistic expectations when it comes to the new agreement struck between the province and Providence Therapeutics for two million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, according to a local epidemiologist.

Providence, a Calgary-based company, is developing a messenger RNA vaccine – similar to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines – that just recently went into the first phase of human clinical trials.

Brad Sorenson, the company’s CEO, said Manitoba paid a 20 per cent non-refundable deposit as part of the deal to buy two million doses of its vaccine, including the first 200,000 produced, pending approval by Health Canada. Forty per cent of the cost is due on approval and another 40 per cent on delivery.

“I won’t disclose the price per dose, that will be disclosed in the coming weeks,” Sorenson said during a Zoom interview with CTV News Winnipeg.

He said Providence used Manitoba’s deposit to secure the plant time for manufacturing and purchasing the raw materials needed for the vaccine. 

“Our costs are a lot more than 20 per cent,” Sorenson said. “And so, we’re sharing risk with the Manitoba government.”

Cynthia Carr, a Winnipeg-based epidemiologist, said those doses will not be injected into anyone’s arm anytime soon.

“If the problem you’re trying to solve is the immediate situation of vaccine shortfalls, this investment is not the solution,” said Carr. “Even in the best-case scenario, you’re looking at end of 2021, early 2022 in terms of distribution.

“This is not the immediate solution.”

As of Friday, 52,664 doses of the vaccine had been administered in Manitoba. However, only 1.7 per cent of the province’s population has been fully vaccinated. 

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister has pointed the finger at the feds for vaccine rollout and delays in getting vaccines to provinces.

In announcing the deal Thursday, Pallister said Manitoba can no longer wait for Ottawa to get vaccines from abroad. 

“The approach they have taken means that when it comes to getting vaccinated against COVID, Canada first is in danger of becoming Canada last,” Pallister said during the announcement.

The federal government said Friday it has ordered four million additional doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and has reached an agreement for 10.8 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine between April and June.

The Prime Minister, responding to a question Friday about Manitoba’s vaccine deal, stuck to Ottawa’s promise to have everyone who wants the shots to be vaccinated by fall.

“I can tell you that the federal government has secured and paid for enough vaccines to get all Canadians who want it vaccinated by this September, including the entire population of Manitoba,” Justin Trudeau said during a media conference.

Carr said an unanticipated conversation that came out of the agreement Manitoba has with Providence is whether earlier investment in smaller companies to develop COVID-19 vaccines would have helped.

She said globally, the consensus was to make large investments in well-known pharmaceutical companies but in retrospect, it may have been beneficial to focus more on locally made solutions.

“We have companies saying, ‘we’ve invested in messenger RNA scientific knowledge and research but now we’re in a situation where we’re trying to sell a product but we’re just at the beginning of our clinical trials with not an ideal amount of time and money for resources,’” Carr said.

Anita Anand, Canada’s Public Services and Procurement Minister, said the government will continue to support domestic research, development and biomanufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines.

Sorenson describes the partnership with Manitoba as a strategic one for the province.

“This announcement isn’t something that’s a short-term announcement, this is a much larger strategic decision that was made by Manitoba and now is being looked at very closely across Canada,” said Sorenson. “There’s a lot of uncertainty that’s associated with importing vaccines from overseas during the middle of a pandemic.

“We know that there’s going to be more variants, we know that there’s likely going to be booster doses required and so this is really isn’t so much about the immediate, although there is some supply that will be provided in 2021. If it’s needed, great. If not, we’ll sell it back into the international market.”