A new not-for-profit company has been formed in Saskatoon to identify vaccine research that can be successfully commercialized.
Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise, or Prevent, will move early-stage vaccines from lab bench and test pen to consumer production.
“There is a gap, a void between discovery and development,” says Andy Potter of the Veterinary and Infectious Disease Organization, where Prevent is located.
“Prevent will address this missing link.”
Potter said there are significant areas of animal and human health care where vaccine commercialization is not taking place, such as the syncytial virus, a respiratory disease that causes 4,500 infant deaths a year in the United States.
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Many diarrheal diseases in livestock could have vaccine treatments but don’t, he added. He said research can wait years for development by commercial companies.
Six employees will work at Prevent, identifying and creating research financing opportunities for early-stage vaccines.
“They will drive Canada’s vaccine research agenda,” Potter said.
“They create opportunities for graduate student training and build capacity for the future of research in Canada.”
VIDO is also home to the new International Vaccine Centre, set to open in 2010. Potter said it too will benefit from Prevent’s creation.
He said the commercial release of new vaccines could reduce Canadian health-care costs by $3 billion annually.
Many of the most serious diseases facing humans have their origins in livestock, such as avian flu. These zoonotic diseases will form a portion of the research.
Prevent also plans to tackle diseases that either threaten agricultural food production, such as BSE, campylobacter and E. coli O157, or economically limit farmers, such as diarrhea-causing infections in hogs.
“I wouldn’t want to bias their direction. They will be consulting with pharmaceutical companies to find out what their needs are, the health-care system, farmers and food processors and other research institutes. It’s a big gap to fill,” Potter said.
“We want to prevent disease, save the health-care system money and create profit opportunities for industry and we needed this non-profit to do that.”
The federal government is contributing $15 million to Prevent and another $10.5 million will come from the University of Saskatchewan, the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology and the British Columbia Centre of Disease Control.
