OTTAWA – Health Canada’s chief medical adviser says there is no scientific explanation to suggest a link between the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and blood clots.
Dr. Supriya Sharma says Health Canada has a “really low threshold” for adverse events that could trigger a pause in the use of a vaccine and wouldn’t hesitate to do so if something warranted it.
But she says the science is not there to suggest the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could be the reason some patients in Europe developed blood clots after they received it.
“There’s not a good biological explanation about why a vaccine of this type, injected into a muscle, would cause that kind of adverse event,” said Sharma, in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Bulgaria are among almost a dozen European nations that paused the use of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine this week – either entirely or specific batches of it – after reports of some patients developing blood clots afterward. None of them said there was evidence of a link, but that the pause was out of an abundance of caution pending a review.
Austria stopped using a doses from a batch of the vaccine earlier this week after two reports of blood clots, but experts there concluded neither was related to the vaccine. Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said Friday he would be willing to get the shot himself to show how much trust he has in it.
Many other countries, including Germany, France, Poland, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and Canada, are sticking with AstraZeneca injections, citing a lack of any evidence showing a link.
The vaccine has been authorized in 74 countries, and by the World Health Organization, and 16 million doses have been injected in the U.K. and Europe alone.
Canada approved it Feb. 26, and the first 500,000 doses were distributed to provinces this week, just as the blood-clot concerns began to go public.
Lucilia Pato, who got her first dose Friday morning at the Junction Chemist in west Toronto, said news that some European countries had stopped using AstraZeneca’s vaccine for now initially gave her pause.
“I was (worried) when I heard about it yesterday but this morning I heard positive things about it, so you know what, I was willing to take my chance,” she said.
The European Medicines Agency, which regulates new drugs for the European Union, said in a statement Thursday it was not suspending its authorization for AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
“There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side-effects with this vaccine,” the EMA said.
Sharma said reviews of adverse events are normal following the release of a new drug or vaccine.
“Once the vaccines are used in the wild, and by millions of people, these things will come up,” she said. “So we’re already in a system where we’re expecting things to pop up and that’s why we have these vigilance systems to be able to detect it.”
Sharma said the first question always to be asked is if there is something scientific to explain a link between an adverse event and a vaccine.
“And when we’re looking at the AstraZeneca vaccine, as an example, there’s not in this case,” she said.
She said regulators also ask whether the number of patients experiencing the effect is higher than what might normally be seen in the population and whether there is some other factor common to all the patients with the issue.
The answer to each question here is also no.
Finally, Sharma said regulators will consider the possibility of a manufacturing mistake with a particular batch. While there is no evidence of that in Europe either, Canada’s doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are also not coming from the same source as Europe’s.
The doses of the vaccine currently being used in Canada were produced at the Serum Institute of India.
Canada has authorized four distinct vaccines for COVID-19, and almost 2.8 million doses have been injected.
Sharma said thus far, none has produced “adverse events” in Canada that were either unexpected or more frequent than expected.
She said Health Canada won’t be slow to act on safety concerns. The people making these decisions are aware it’s not just Canadians as a whole, but themselves and their loved ones who will be getting the same vaccines.
“These are our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re doing the best for all of them as well.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 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.
