Researchers suggest ’home remedies’ to increase vaccine supply in Canada before next pandemic

COVID-19 has put a spotlight on Canada's pandemic preparedness, and led some experts and leaders to call for a new public agency that would be in charge of domestic vaccine production to increase self-sufficiency. But Paul Grootendorst , an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, says creating such an agency would be more trouble than it's worth. In a paper titled  "Home Remedies: How Should Canada Acquire Vaccines for the Next Pandemic?" recently published by the C.D. Howe Institute, Grootendorst and his co-authors explore other ways Canada could boost vaccine production more efficiently ahead of the next pandemic. Grootendorst wrote the article with Michael Schunk and Robert Van Exan, both independent consultants in the vaccine industry, and Javad Moradpour , a post-doctoral fellow in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. Paul Grootendorst - "Vaccine production is very complicated and requires a lot of lead time. Moreover, different vaccines require different production platforms and it is unclear which platform will be required for the next pandemic vaccine," Grootendorst says. "In this analysis, we wanted to add a different perspective that highlighted the complexity of the issue." The researchers describe how the high failure rates of vaccine candidates and the logistics involved in a large clinical trial, especially one that needs to be done quickly, would make vaccine development an expensive endeavour for a public agency - with a significant risk that no viable vaccine candidate would emerge.