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.
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.
