Former LSI Director Dr. Pieter Cullis and University of Toronto’s Shana Kelly published today an Op-Ed in the Hill Times calling for growing the biotech industry to accelerate growth of knowledge-based economy, and to promote economic prosperity.
“The COVID- 19 pandemic has exposed the fact that Canada lacks biopharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing capacity,” write the co-authors. “At the same time, it has highlighted Canada’s strengths in biopharmaceutical innovation. A critical component of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine-and one of the first therapeutic antibodies to treat SARS- CoV- 2 infected patients – were developed in Canada.
“Canada’s biomedical community can clearly be competitive globally. However, we need investment in research and development, as well as infrastructure, to enable end-to-end, made-in-Canada solutions that can help Canadians and ensure health security.”