OTTAWA — Canada is near the front of the line to get millions of doses of four of the most promising COVID-19 vaccines in development, but the federal government does not plan to make getting a vaccine mandatory, federal cabinet ministers said Monday.
Procurement Minister Anita Anand announced new deals with Maryland-based biotech company Novavax for Canada to buy as many as 76 million doses of its experimental vaccine candidate, and up to 38 million doses of the vaccine in development by Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical company Janssen Inc.
Earlier this month similar deals were signed with U.S. companies Pfizer and Moderna but Anand only revealed Monday that those deals would see Canada access up to 20 million doses of Pfizer’s candidate and up to 56 million doses of Moderna’s version.
A fifth deal with AstraZeneca is almost complete, Anand said, and deals with other companies could also follow. All are racing to research, test and produce vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
“In short, when a vaccine is ready, Canada will be ready,” said Anand.
All four of the vaccines Canada has contracts for, as well as the AstraZeneca candidate, are also part of the United States Operation Warp Speed program, which aims to have a vaccine ready for use by the end of the year.
Health Canada’s approval process for any vaccine must still be followed, which will require proof a vaccine is both safe for use and effective at either preventing COVID-19 or reducing the severity of disease.
But Anand said the arrangements put in place with these companies mean if and when one of these vaccines is approved, Canadians will be among the first in line to get it.
“We are prepared to protect Canadians who choose to be vaccinated.”
The key word there is “choose,” with Health Minister Patty Hajdu ending speculation Monday Canada might force Canadians to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
“We believe that people have a choice in Canada about whether or not to be vaccinated,” Hajdu said. “But we also believe we have an important responsibility as Canadians to take vaccinations to protect our communities.”
Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba all have some mandatory vaccines kids must have to attend school, but beyond that public health officials rely on educating people about the safety and value of immunization programs. Hajdu acknowledged that the more people who get vaccinated the better, though she did not say what percentage of Canadians she believes would need to get vaccinated to create so-called herd immunity.
That is where enough people are immune to a disease that it cannot spread easily, so even people without immunity have low odds of catching it.
Hajdu added that Canada does not have the same level of skepticism towards vaccinations as is seen in some other places. Still, Canada’s vaccination rates fall below the stated national goals. The aim is for 80 per cent of seniors and high-risk adults to get the influenza vaccine each year. In 2018-19, 70 per cent of seniors and 43 per cent of high-risk adults between 18 and 64 were immunized against the flu.
In 2009, during the H1N1 flu pandemic, about two in five Canadians got vaccinated.
There are more than 160 COVID-19 vaccines in development around the world but only about two dozen are being tested on humans so far, including the four Canada is now in line to buy. Various vaccines use different technologies to try to train human immune systems to detect and fight off the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Anand said signing contracts for a number of different types of potential vaccines is critical because nobody knows which vaccine or vaccines will end up being approved. Pfizer and Moderna have started Phase 3 trials — most of the time there are only three phases of clinical testing, with the third phase being the biggest. Johnson & Johnson and Novavax are both in Phase 2 trials, which are conducted on smaller numbers of volunteers.
Monday’s announcement came just days after a collaboration between the National Research Council and Chinese vaccine-maker CanSino finally collapsed, taking that possible vaccine out of likely contention for use here.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was at the National Research Council’s Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre in Montreal Monday morning, which earlier this year was given $44 million to upgrade its facilities in part so it could produce the CanSino vaccine for Canadians if clinical trials proved it safe and effective.
The NRC had given CanSino a license to use a Canadian biological product as part of the COVID-19 vaccine and CanSino was going to provide samples of the vaccine for clinical trials at the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University. Trudeau announced that partnership in May, but China never approved shipments of the vaccine to be exported to Canada and the NRC killed the deal last week.
Trudeau said the NRC partnership with CanSino had been well established and did good work on a vaccine for Ebola and said he is “disappointed” it did not work out this time.
“Unfortunately China didn’t grant export permits for the vaccine to Canada so we are continuing to focus on many other paths that are very promising in terms of developing a vaccine,” he said.
The updated NRC lab in Montreal is to be able to produce up to 250,000 doses of vaccines a month as of November.
Trudeau announced additional funding to build a new facility at the Montreal lab over the next two years, to produce even more vaccines within Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2020.
Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version misspelled the name of pharmaceutical company Novavax.
Netflix (NFLX) stock slid as much as 9.6% Friday after the company gave a second quarter revenue forecast that missed estimates and announced it would stop reporting quarterly subscriber metrics closely watched by Wall Street.
On Thursday, Netflix guided to second quarter revenue of $9.49 billion, a miss compared to consensus estimates of $9.51 billion.
The company said it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers starting next year, along with average revenue per member, or ARM.
“As we’ve evolved our pricing and plans from a single to multiple tiers with different price points depending on the country, each incremental paid membership has a very different business impact,” the company said.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings that beat across the board on Thursday, with another 9 million-plus subscribers added in the quarter.
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Subscriber additions of 9.3 million beat expectations of 4.8 million and followed the 13 million net additions the streamer added in the fourth quarter. The company added 1.7 million paying users in Q1 2023.
Revenue beat Bloomberg consensus estimates of $9.27 billion to hit $9.37 billion in the quarter, an increase of 14.8% compared to the same period last year as the streamer leaned on revenue initiatives like its crackdown on password-sharing and ad-supported tier, in addition to the recent price hikes on certain subscription plans.
Netflix’s stock has been on a tear in recent months, with shares currently trading near the high end of its 52-week range. Wall Street analysts had warned that high expectations heading into the print could serve as an inherent risk to the stock price.
Earnings per share (EPS) beat estimates in the quarter, with the company reporting EPS of $5.28, well above consensus expectations of $4.52 and nearly double the $2.88 EPS figure it reported in the year-ago period. Netflix guided to second quarter EPS of $4.68, ahead of consensus calls for $4.54.
Profitability metrics also came in strong, with operating margins sitting at 28.1% for the first quarter compared to 21% in the same period last year.
The company previously guided to full-year 2024 operating margins of 24% after the metric grew to 21% from 18% in 2023. Netflix expects margins to tick down slightly in Q2 to 26.6%.
Free cash flow came in at $2.14 billion in the quarter, above consensus calls of $1.9 billion.
Meanwhile, ARM ticked up 1% year over year — matching the fourth quarter results. Wall Street analysts expect ARM to pick up later this year as both the ad-tier impact and price hike effects take hold.
On the ads front, ad-tier memberships increased 65% quarter over quarter after rising nearly 70% sequentially in Q3 2023 and Q4 2023. The ads plan now accounts for over 40% of all Netflix sign-ups in the markets it’s offered in.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo (REUTERS / Reuters)
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
Oil prices initially spiked on Friday due to unconfirmed reports of an Israeli missile strike on Iran.
Prices briefly reached above $90 per barrel before falling back as Iran denied the attack.
Iranian media reported activating their air defense systems, not an Israeli strike.
Oil prices gave up nearly all of early Friday’s gains after an Iranian official told Reuters that there hadn’t been a missile attack against Iran.
Oil surged by as much as $3 per barrel in Asian trade early on Friday after a U.S. official told ABC News today that Israel launched missile strikes against Iran in the early morning hours today. After briefly spiking to above $90 per barrel early on Friday in Asian trade, Brent fell back to $87.10 per barrel in the morning in Europe.
The news was later confirmed by Iranian media, which said the country’s air defense system took down three drones over the city of Isfahan, according to Al Jazeera. Flights to three cities including Tehran and Isfahan were suspended, Iranian media also reported.
Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s missile strikes last week was seen by most as a guarantee of escalation of the Middle East conflict since Iran had warned Tel Aviv that if it retaliates, so will Tehran in its turn and that retaliation would be on a greater scale than the missile strikes from last week. These developments were naturally seen as strongly bullish for oil prices.
However, hours after unconfirmed reports of an Israeli attack first emerged, Reuters quoted an Iranian official as saying that there was no missile strike carried out against Iran. The explosions that were heard in the large Iranian city of Isfahan were the result of the activation of the air defense systems of Iran, the official told Reuters.
Overall, Iran appears to downplay the event, with most official comments and news reports not mentioning Israel, Reuters notes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites,” confirming Iranian reports on the matter.
The Isfahan province is home to Iran’s nuclear site for uranium enrichment.
“Brent briefly soared back above $90 before reversing lower after Iranian media downplayed a retaliatory strike by Israel,” Saxo Bank said in a Friday note.
The $5 a barrel trading range in oil prices over the past week has been driven by traders attempting to “quantify the level of risk premium needed to reflect heightened tensions but with no impact on supply,” the bank said, adding “Expect prices to bid ahead of the weekend.”
At the time of writing Brent was trading at $87.34 and WTI at $83.14.
