OTTAWA —
Health Canada is on track to give the green light to a third COVID-19 vaccine within the next two weeks and a fourth may not be far behind, offering a glimmer of hope at the end of a week of nothing but vaccine vexation.
Eric Morrissette, chief of media relations at Health Canada, said Friday the regulatory team that has been reviewing an application from AstraZeneca since Oct. 1 is just awaiting final submissions from the drugmaker on manufacturing processes before making its decision.
AstraZeneca was the first to apply for approval for a COVID-19 vaccine in Canada and has been greenlit in 15 jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, Mexico, India, and as of Friday, the entire European Union.
Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser, said earlier this month the review was “a bit more complicated” because in AstraZeneca’s trials, some volunteers only received a half dose at first.
A big trial underway in the United States is supposed to provide more clarity, but Morrissette said Friday that trial won’t report findings until March and Health Canada’s team has decided it has all the clinical data it needs.
A fourth vaccine could be close at hand as well, after Johnson and Johnson reported Friday that Phase 3 clinical trial results – typically the last before a drug is approved for wide use – showed its vaccine is about 85 per cent effective against serious illness from COVID-19. Johnson and Johnson, which submitted an application to Canada for approval Nov. 30, offers the only single-dose vaccine thus far.
Health Canada approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine on Dec. 9. and Moderna’s on Dec. 23, each time about three weeks after Phase 3 trial results were publicly reported.
Canada has pre-ordered 10 million doses from Johnson and Johnson with the potential to get 28 million more, and 20 million doses from AstraZeneca. But the federal government has not said when those doses would be delivered, and recent days have shown deliveries for COVID-19 vaccines are constantly subject to change.
Moderna became the third vaccine-maker in two weeks Friday, to announce production delays will cut into its upcoming deliveries.
The Massachusetts-based biotech firm shipped more than 340,000 doses to Canada in the last month, but next week’s shipment is getting cut by about one-fifth, or 50,000 fewer doses, because of slower-than-expected production of the drug components by Moderna’s manufacturing partner, Lonza. Similar reductions are affecting Europe.
Moderna’s Canadian country manager Patricia Gauthier said the company will ship all two millions doses its contract stipulates by the end of March. Canada bought 40 million doses from Moderna overall, with most of them contracted to arrive between April 1 and Sept. 30.
Canada’s budding vaccination effort shrivelled this week when a temporary production slowdown caused Pfizer and BioNTech to cancel an entire shipment of more than 208,000 doses, after cutting last week’s shipment by about 20 per cent. The next two weeks’ deliveries will be cut by about 80 per cent before mostly being restored the week of Feb. 15.
Pfizer is also now asking Canada to agree each of its vials contains six doses, rather than five, which would allow it to ultimately ship fewer vials to meet its obligation of four million doses by the end of March, and 40 million by the fall.
AstraZeneca is cutting deliveries to Europe by 60 per cent through the end of March because of production problems in Belgium. That, coupled with Pfizer’s delays, prompted the European Union to require vaccine makers to report on how many doses are being produced and exported from Europe.
All of Canada’s Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses are made in Europe. Canadian officials won’t say where Canada’s doses from AstraZeneca are to be made, but insist they will be unaffected by the European production problems.
Canada is not among more than 120 countries exempted on paper from the export controls, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen assured him in a phone call Wednesday that the export controls won’t affect Canada.
Despite the production hiccups, Trudeau insisted Friday Canada’s vaccine program is on track, noting production problems when the world is trying to build manufacturing lines for new products in massive demand are not a surprise.
Canada’s current vaccination plan says there will be three million people vaccinated by the end of March and another 10 million by the end of June, and that anyone else who wants to be immunized will be by the end of September.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said the government needs to be more transparent about its vaccine contracts. Canada has contracts with seven COVID-19 vaccine-makers but has never published any details, including prices or delivery timelines.
The United States released redacted versions of contracts it has, and the European Commission Friday released a redacted AstraZeneca contract and said it wants to release the rest as soon as possible. It has to negotiate doing so with the companies.
Trudeau said Friday Canada will try to do that too but won’t jeopardize getting vaccines to Canadians as quickly as possible.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 29, 2021
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.
