OTTAWA —
Canadian health authorities are keeping a watchful eye on European investigations of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of blood clots following inoculations, but say there is no evidence they were caused by the vaccine.
At least nine European countries hit pause on their use of AstraZeneca’s doses — some entirely, and others only on specific batches — pending further investigation of blood clots, though none suggested there is a link between the clots and getting the vaccine.
Canada’s first 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca are being put to use just this week, and officials in several provinces said Thursday they don’t intend to stop the rollout.
“At this time, we have no information to suggest that this vaccine poses more risks than any other,” said Dr. Horacio Arruda, director of public health in Quebec.
Carlo Mastrangelo, the head of corporate affairs, communications and sustainability at AstraZeneca Canada, said the company has completed a new safety review of 10 million patients who received the vaccine. He said it uncovered “no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country” with its COVID-19 vaccine.
“In fact, the observed number of these types of events are significantly lower in those vaccinated than what would be expected among the general population,” said Mastrangelo.
Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease doctor at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, said he has been inundated with calls from family doctors who are supposed to start inoculating patients this weekend, wondering if there was reason to be concerned.
Chagla said he will give the vaccine to patients this weekend as planned, because he trusts that Health Canada, which is constantly monitoring safety reports, would step in if there was any concern.
“Health Canada, they are working 24-7,” he said. “Their role is if there’s anything that goes on, you know that they essentially put a halt to it.”
Health authorities in Denmark, which halted AstraZeneca vaccinations Thursday after an undisclosed number of blood clots were reported, and one patient died, said they stopped using the vaccine to be extra cautious, not because there was an expected connection.
The European Medicines Agency is probing the issue itself but says 30 blood clots in more than five million patients who received the vaccine is not out of step with the normal rate of blood clots in the general population.
Chagla said the normal incidence of blood clots is about one in 1,000 patients over the course of a year. When vaccinating millions of people, it is not unusual to see some of them develop blood clots.
The question is whether they could have had the clot without the vaccine. Chagla said these kind of investigations are totally normal in the rollout of any new pharmaceutical.
“This is what I think the European Union is going through,” he said. “Now they’re trying to say, ‘Hey, is this an issue with the vaccine or are these people that we’re just going to have blood clots regardless?’ And you know, if it was the same thing as being struck by lightning, we would very easily say, ‘Well, OK, the vaccine has nothing to do with people being struck by lightning.”‘
Chagla said if a link is found, it may also be specific to one batch of the vaccine, which also has to be examined. Canada’s doses, he noted, are currently coming from the Serum Institute of India, while Europe is getting its doses from facilities there.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, said on Twitter that the blood clots are “extremely rare events in an area that is using a lot of this vaccine.”
“There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these events and the actions these countries have taken is out of an abundance of caution,” she said. “We will continue watching closely and monitoring every dose of the vaccine in Alberta.”
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province won’t discontinue AstraZeneca but is working with Health Canada to follow the evidence.
“We are continuing with our AstraZeneca inoculations and we know that several million doses have already been administered around the world with no adverse effects,” she said.
This latest setback for AstraZeneca’s vaccine came just after concerns about its efficacy in seniors started to wane. Several European nations reversed earlier decisions not to give it to people over 65 because there weren’t enough seniors in the clinical trials.
Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended seniors be prioritized for the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which had more evidence of how they work on seniors.
The chair of the committee, Dr. Caroline Quach, told The Canadian Press the board met Wednesday to discuss newer evidence of how the AstraZeneca vaccine worked for seniors in “real-world” use, and expects an updated statement on the vaccine in Canada “in the next few days.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 11, 2021.
With files from Sidhartha Banerjee in Montreal and Shawn Jeffords in Toronto.
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.
