With the spread of COVID-19 easing in Quebec and the sanitary measures easing, it is clear that things are almost back to “normal”: no more masks, no more vaccine passports and almost no more physical distancing. In the event that a new virus were to spread in our beautiful province, would we really be ready to face a new pandemic?
Posted yesterday at 3:00 p.m.
If there is one lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that investing in life sciences, specifically in people, infrastructure, medicines and vaccines, is the essence of pandemic preparedness. In addition to helping combat COVID-19, these efforts have highlighted the fact that a strong life sciences sector not only better prepares us for a pandemic, but also increases our economic diversity, to provide well-paying, recession-proof jobs and to give us greater health self-reliance.
Recognizing this strategic importance, the federal government announced investments of $2.2 billion to increase production, research new drugs and help life science companies grow. For its part, the Government of Quebec has proposed to invest $110 million over the next three years to accelerate the expansion of the sector in the province.
Quebec is full of innovative biopharmaceutical companies ready to use the biopharmaceutical and medical innovation centers supported by these programs.
Canadian biotech company Edesa Biotech is already a successful example of public-private partnerships. Funding from the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) helped the company rapidly develop a monoclonal antibody therapy against acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the leading cause of death in COVID-19 patients. This antibody therapy could quickly be made available to doctors working in intensive care units. Preliminary clinical trials have shown that this experimental treatment has already saved many lives, and this, in a phenomenal way among the most affected patients.
So how can we better prepare for the next pandemic? Canada and Quebec have already been able to meet this challenge by investing in the life sciences sector. Now we need a commitment from our governments to support our local universities, which are the source of our human capital and our new discoveries, to develop scientific discoveries for new treatments and to increase our capacities in biomanufacturing for meet national and international demand.
I am hopeful that our policy makers will take the right approach to preparing for a future pandemic. Clearly, the COVID-19 virus is not going away anytime soon, nor is our willingness and ability to develop a local biotech-based economy to combat it.