Carol Baldwin
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wakaw Recorder
As part of the $5 million in funding the University of Saskatchewan researchers received from the provincial and federal governments through the Agricultural Development Fund (ADF), Dr. Volker Gerdts’ (DVM, PhD), VIDO project, Enhancing Emergency Preparedness Using Process Analytical Tools (PAT) for Vaccine Manufacturing, received $392,517.
On January 27, it was announced that VIDO was awarded a $24 million grant to help develop a vaccine to protect against wide-ranging strains of coronaviruses from the Norwegian-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an innovative global partnership that invests in vaccine development to stop future epidemics. The coalition has also initiated two partnerships on research and development for ‘variant-proof’ COVID-19 vaccines… enter VIDO.
Unlike traditional vaccines, broadly protective vaccines are designed to provide immunity against many related viruses or pathogens, including future variants that may not yet exist. Broadly protective vaccines, like the one VIDO is developing, aim to safeguard everyone—reducing illness, preventing hospitalizations, and protecting livelihoods. These vaccines also create the potential for greater health security, less fear of future outbreaks, and a better chance of returning to normal life more quickly during global health crises. The safe and stable innovative protein subunit technology developed by VIDO works by presenting non-infectious protein fragments, such as receptor binding domains, to the body to generate an immune response. VIDO’s updated vaccine design, created to provide broad coronavirus protection, now contains receptor-binding domains from multiple coronaviruses to elicit protective immune responses against multiple viruses.
The development of this vaccine will help advance the 100 Days Mission, a goal spearheaded by CEPI and embraced by Canada and other G7 as well as G20 nations, to create new vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they can be accessible to all people in need in as little as 100 days from viral identification to contain new viruses with epidemic and pandemic potential. CEPI’s mission is to accelerate the development of safe, effective, globally accessible vaccines.
The project builds on VIDO’s earlier work on a variant-proof COVID-19 vaccine, which received funding from CEPI in 2021. This vaccine will have a wider use case than the COVID-19 vaccine that people may be familiar with. Dr. Nicole Lurie, Executive Director of Emergency Preparedness at CEPI, said the vaccine is designed by combining fragments of several different coronaviruses into a single vaccine, thereby developing a ‘pan-sarbecovirus vaccine.’ “Our goal is to be sure that the world is never again hit by a coronavirus pandemic,” said Lurie.
“Traditionally, we’ve always developed vaccines against a specific virus, something that’s already circulating in the human population. But what we’re trying to do now is … semi-predict the future as to what could be circulating in the human population, next year or the year after that and by having that prediction in mind when we’re developing the vaccine, we’re trying to then hopefully develop a what we’d call a ‘broadly protective immune response’ in the people who receive this vaccine so that they can be protected not just against viruses that are currently circulating, but ones that we think would be circulating in the future,” said Trina Racine, the director of vaccine development at VIDO.
This funding comes in addition to $30 million provided by PrairiesCan to complete critical infrastructure that establishes VIDO as Canada’s Centre for Pandemic Research, including a new animal housing facility and upgrades to containment Level 4.
CEPI funds and creates partnerships between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organizations to develop vaccines against known diseases that have the potential to turn into epidemics. They also invest in platform technologies that can enable the rapid development of vaccines against new and unknown pathogens. Additionally, CEPI coordinates global initiatives to improve the collective response to epidemics. Its mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they can be accessible to all people in need. Central to CEPI’s pandemic-beating five-year plan for 2022-2026 is the ‘100 Days Mission’ to compress the time taken to develop safe, effective, globally accessible vaccines against new threats to just 100 days.
It’ll be a couple of years yet before anything is ready for the clinic, officials say. They are hoping to be in the clinic by the end of 2026, maybe early 2027, because there is still more development work to do, as well as figuring out how to manufacture the vaccine at a scale that could be more commercially viable as well as manufactured with the appropriate conditions so that the material is safe to use in humans.
In making the vaccine for human use, VIDO will look to use their new manufacturing facility and bring the vaccine into phase one of human clinical testing. As a protein-based vaccine technology, VIDO’s vaccine is favourable to low- and middle-income countries as it is thermostable and, therefore, does not require complex frozen storage, which can be lacking in low-resource settings and can, therefore, impact access to doses.
Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, said, “Coronaviruses are behind some of the deadliest outbreaks in the 21st century, and the threat of a novel coronavirus threat [is] ever-present. We therefore need to move away from the ‘one bug, one drug’ approach where we create vaccines against individual viral threats and instead develop a single vaccine that could target COVID-19, SARS and other sarbecoviruses. This would be an essential preparedness step for the world that could prevent the escalation of cases in a future outbreak and save time, money, and, ultimately, lives. Canada has been an integral supporter of CEPI since our launch, and we are delighted to continue our partnership, supported by Global Affairs Canada, investing in VIDO’s promising vaccine innovation.”
University of Saskatchewan’s president, Peter Stoicheff, said, “This tremendous investment highlights the global recognition of VIDO’s scientific excellence and the University of Saskatchewan’s commitment to addressing some of the world’s most pressing health challenges. Together, we are advancing innovation to protect people worldwide from emerging infectious diseases.”
Dr. Volker Gerdts, Director and CEO of VIDO, noted, “This funding from CEPI is a testament to VIDO’s global leadership in infectious disease research and vaccine development. By focusing on broadly protective coronavirus vaccines, we are taking a critical step toward safeguarding humanity against future pandemics. Collaboration like this underscores the importance of international partnerships in developing innovative solutions to complex health threats.”
The University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) is internationally recognized for its role in vaccine development and is one of Canada’s national science facilities. VIDO has conducted infectious disease research and vaccine development for half a century, with eight of its vaccines being sold commercially and six described as world-firsts. The 185+ member organization operates using an ISO9001-certified management system in one of the largest and most advanced containment facilities in the world. To strengthen the preparedness for emerging infectious diseases, VIDO is expanding to become Canada’s Centre for Pandemic Research, which includes Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) containment level 3 (CL3) capable vaccine manufacturing and containment Level 4 capacity. VIDO receives operating support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation Major Science Initiatives fund and the Government of Saskatchewan through Innovation Saskatchewan and the Ministry of Agriculture.
