Canada reject Serum Institute of India’s bid for HIV vaccine facility in Winnipeg

[Guest guest]

Tell us why HIV bid was nixed

By: Staff Writer

EDITORIALS: Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

26/01/2010

After more than two years of hard work and considerable expense, Winnipeg's

renowned HIV-research community has been told its bid for the federally funded

vaccine manufacturing lab has been rejected. It has not yet been told why Ottawa

rejected the city's proposal to host the $88-million plant that was to draw $22

million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

More worrisome is the speculation that the federal government may be shelving

its commitment to build the plant at all. Four centres submitted proposals:

Winnipeg's International Centre on Infectious Diseases, Laval University at

Quebec, Trent University's antiviral initiative and the University of Western

Ontario. Until last week, the ICID was optimistic -- theirs was a consortium

involving the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of

India, as well as universities across Canada and Cangene, Canada's largest

biotech company -- due to Winnipeg's wealth of HIV researchers, and its

relationship to the national microbiology laboratory on Arlington Street.

The rejection is a huge blow to the city's prospects as the plant would have an

operating budget of $20 million and bring some 70 jobs, most in specialized

HIV-vaccine production work.

Ottawa's response has been ambiguous -- a spokesman said a notice posted on the

website of the Public Health Agency of Canada that the government was not

proceeding with the plant was an administrative error. Evading mention of a

Canadian plant, the government said it is continuing to work with the Gates

Foundation on speeding along vaccine production.

A decision to nix a Canadian vaccine facility would be a blow to the country's

work toward an inoculation against the virus that causes AIDS, a disease that

continues at epidemic proportions globally, particularly in poor and developing

countries. Rates of infection are on the rise in some parts of Canada, including

Manitoba.

The public non-profit model for a vaccine plant was intended to take the

discoveries of international researchers and turn them into compounds ready for

use in trials in human and animal subjects.

Prime Minister Harper's announcement in late 2007 on a vaccine plant was

good news for a research community discouraged that same year when a Merck

clinical trial was halted out of concern its vaccine prototype had made some

subjects susceptible to HIV.

The federal cabinet, including senior Manitoba minister Vic Toews, has refused

comment on the Canadian project. Dr. Allan , professor emeritus at the

University of Manitoba, who was involved in the Manitoba bid, says that among

the four centres about $1 million was invested in vying for the plant.

Other officials at ICID say flat out, that if Winnipeg's bid did not win, then

no one could have won and the federal government must be axing the program

altogether.

The Harper government owes a lot of people a much better account of what has

delayed, and perhaps scuttled, a project that was widely regarded as a vital

element to the global fight against HIV.

Manitoba and those who have worked intimately in the hopes of launching this

facility deserve a good answer on what went wrong. Mr. Toews should step

forward.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 26, 2010 A10

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/editorial---tell-us-why-hiv-\

bif-was-nixed-82678827.html