Vaccine development centre opens in Saskatoon

The University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) Vaccine Development Centre is complete.

 “We have the ability to make human and animal vaccines in the same facility and that we are tied into the containment space,” Director and CEO of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization Volker Gerdts said.

VIDO is one of the few biomanufacturing facilities in the world that can provide vaccines under containment level 3. The facility cost $28 million and received federal, provincial and municipal funding.

 “We recognized the only way to move beyond the pandemic and keep people safe was through a coordinated, effective immunization campaign that included swift and reliable procurement from our government,” Minister for Prairies Economic Development Daniel Vandal said in a media release.

“At the same time, we are ensuring that Canadians, and the global community, have Canadian-produced vaccines to protect from future infectious disease outbreaks by investing $97.8 million from PrairiesCan since 2018, to help VIDO emerge as a world-class hub of research, development, and vaccine manufacturing capacity.”

VIDO broke ground by being one of the first labs in Canada to isolate the SARS-VoV-2 virus. A VIDO-developed COVID-19 vaccine is currently undergoing trials.

The facility was the first at a Canadian university to create its own COVID-19 vaccine and to enter clinical trials. The COVAC-2 is an alternative to the mRNA vaccines currently being used for immunization in Canada.

The centre will be one of only a few in the world certified for containment Level 3 - used for work with high-risk biological agents and hazards, genetically modified organisms, animals and plants.

“So those pathogens that in the future require containment, we can work with them here, because we are already operating Canada's largest containment facility,” said Gerdts.

VIDO says the centre is its first step in establishing the lab as Canada’s Centre for Pandemic Research, which the province says is raising Saskatchewan's profile.

“What this is doing now is bringing their (VIDO) expertise and their impeccable reputation to the human vaccine side,” said Premier Scott Moe. “Expanding beyond just research but expanding into the actual development of those vaccines, production of those vaccines.”

Vandal responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada said it became evident when COVID first hit that there needed to be Canadian production of vaccines.

“In the future, we’re going to be much better prepared as we know that pandemics are going to hit again whether it’s in 2 years or 25 years,” Prairies Economic Development Canada Member of Parliament Dan Vandal said. “They're not going away.”

Currently, VIDO’s centre is classified as containment Level 3. The building is built to containment Level 4 standards and is now working to become certified. That would allow it to work with the most deadly severe human and animal diseases.

Staff include scientists from 25 countries.