TORONTO —
With a second large pharmaceutical company announcing promising trial results for a potential COVID-19 vaccine, Canadian companies are gearing up to pitch in to the logistical challenges of storing millions of doses in hyper-cold temperatures.
Guelph, Ont.-based Danby, maker of compact appliances such as fridges, freezers, microwaves, and air conditioners, will soon announce the production of a new line of -80 C freezers, company CEO and owner Jim Estill told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.
He said the company is finalizing specifications and will officially announce the new line next week. He said full production will take about 120 days, “which is not out of line with the timing of the need.”
Estill expects super-cold storage will be required in hospitals, pharmacies and courier hubs across Canada to handle an estimated 70 million vials of vaccines that require two doses for each recipient.
360 Medical, which provides cold storage equipment to labs, clinics, hospitals and pharmacies, is seeing a “massive increase in demand” for -80 C freezers, president Paul Greco told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.
The Schomberg, Ont.-based distributer is fielding inquiries from doctor’s offices, hospitals and the Red Cross, he said.
The freezers range from about $8,500 to $20,000, but Greco says even small units can hold about 20,000 doses.
360 Medical’s supplier Haier Biomedical, which is based in China, has reassured that supply of hyper-cold storage equipment won’t be an issue, said Greco.
Moderna made headlines Monday with its reports that preliminary clinical trial data of its vaccine candidate show 94.5 per cent effectiveness in preventing COVID-19.
Last week, competitor Pfizer Inc. announced similar results for its vaccine candidate.
Both companies are developing what are called mRNA vaccines, a new technology that doesn’t include any of the coronavirus itself, but instead contains a piece of genetic code that trains the immune system to recognize the virus. Both need cold storage, but the requirements vary.
“mRNA vaccines are essentially brand new, but they are the vaccines of the future. The need now is for the coronavirus, but it will be used for other vaccines, too,” said Estill.
Moderna and Pfizer both said they would seek permission for emergency use from U.S. regulators within weeks.
The news provides some hope while COVID-19 cases surge in Canada, the U.S. and many parts of the world. But the challenge of producing and distributing a future vaccine to millions in this large country with a highly dispersed population looms large.
Never mind that every country in the world will be vying for vaccine supply at the same time.
Moderna president Dr. Stephen Hoge said Monday that “many vaccines” will be needed to meet global demand.
Canada has signed deals with seven vaccine developers, including Pfizer and Moderna, to reserve millions of doses of approved vaccines.
Purolator CEO John Ferguson said Canada has the necessary supply chain infrastructure in place to handle the challenge and his company is ready, too, to deliver a vaccine to hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and long-term care facilities.
“We are used to shipping across Canada to every nook and cranny, every city, every suburb and every rural area,” he said in a phone interview from Toronto.
“This is on a big scale but I feel confident Canada is in good shape.”
Extreme cold storage will be required at central distribution hubs, where vaccine vials may stay for days or weeks. But during the “last mile” courier delivery that Purolator specializes in, temperatures can be maintained by ice packs, dry ice or other packaging, said Ferguson.
The distribution system is already in place to handle flu vaccines and other immunizations, along with a wide range of time-sensitive cancer therapeutics and other drugs, said Ferguson.
Distributing a COVID-19 vaccine will build on that experience, with Purolator adding dedicated workers, equipment and trucks.
“This is going to take governments, manufacturers and supply chain all pulling together to make sure this is done right.”
Danby, which has been in operation in Canada since 1947 and also owns a subsidiary in the United States, launched a medical refrigerator last year and has been ramping up its engineering since the emergence of COVID-19, said Estill.
“We are pulling out all the stops. It’s a top priority of the company,” said Estill, who has owned Danby since 2015.
“This can make a very meaningful impact in the world. A vaccine is no good if it can’t be distributed or stored.”
Danby has also pivoted into building ventilators in partnership with Canadian medical device maker Baylis Medical, and has built about 6,500 of an intended 10,000. The company has also donated 500 UV-light air purifiers to the Toronto District School Board.
An ongoing challenge of production geared to COVID-19 response is securing the necessary components, which are in short supply, said Estill.
Danby’s first hyper-cold freezer will be about 10 cubic feet, or roughly half the size of a large consumer chest freezer, and will cost C$10,000. That size will be easily shipped and will plug in to a normal wall outlet, said Estill, but future production will include a range of sizes.
“The complexity of building an -80 C freezer is massively huge. It’s not at all a simple freezer, but we make half a million freezers a year, so we can do it.”
To compare how cold that is, Health Canada recommends that home freezers be set at -18 C or lower to keep food safe. Dry ice, which is solid state carbon dioxide, also freezes to a temperature of -80 C. Touching items frozen at those temperatures with bare hands for more than a second or so can result in frostbite that could require hospital treatment.
Pfizer Canada spokesperson Christina Antoniou said in a statement provided to CTVNews.ca that the company is “working with urgency” with governments, and public health authorities to “determine the logistics of the vaccine distribution in Canada, pending regulatory approval.”
She said the company will manufacture a vaccine at multiple sites in the U.S. and Europe and will transport on a “just in time” system.
“For Canada, our distribution approach will be to largely ship from our manufacturing sites direct to the point of use.”
Pfizer will use dry ice in to maintain storage temperatures for up to 15 days, along with GPS-enabled thermal sensors in each “thermal shipper” that can be tracked at each stage of delivery.
“These GPS-enabled devices will allow Pfizer to proactively prevent unwanted deviations and act before they happen,” she wrote.
Depending on their formulation, vaccines could have different storage requirements.
Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine candidate can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures (2 C to 8 C) for up to 30 days and at -20 C for up to six months. It’s also stable at room temperature for up to 12 hours, company data has shown.
Pfizer’s candidate will require long-term deep freeze, says the company. That has led to a run on ultra-cold freezers in the U.S., but is raising concerns that rural hospitals won’t be able to afford the units, which cost up to US$15,000 each.
Medical news site STAT says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised state health departments against purchasing ultra-cold freezers, with the idea that other vaccines with less demanding storage requirements will be available soon.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
