Federal government creates new agency, Health Crisis Preparedness Canada, to prepare for next pandemic

The Government of Canada announced Tuesday the creation of an entirely new federal agency entirely dedicated to preparing the country for the next health crisis.

The federal government is giving this new structure, called Health Crisis Preparedness Canada (HCPC), the responsibility of ordering vaccines, coordinating scientific research and, more generally, leading the Canadian response to the next pandemic.

Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, made the announcement Tuesday at a summit on innovation in the field of biotechnology, Bionation, in Ottawa.

“We are living in the renaissance of the health sector,” he said to the business people, who had just applauded him warmly.

Minister Champagne stressed to this interested audience the importance of building an “industrial base” capable of responding to future public health crises, while praising the qualities of research in the country. “All this collective learning that we did during the pandemic, we didn’t want it to be scattered. We didn’t want it to be lost.”

Health Crisis Preparedness Canada is being created from the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, but will have to work closely with Health Canada and its Public Health Agency of Canada. It promises to “bridge the gap between research and commercialization,” whether in vaccines, therapeutics, or diagnostic tools.

The new federal agency is modeled on the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in the United States and the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority in the European Union.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in Canada in March 2020, was characterized by press conferences involving several federal ministers, as the government’s response was shared across departments. The government wants its operations to be more centralized in a similar crisis.

In the meantime, PCSC will lead research projects on health risks and ensure the country’s industrial capacity in biomanufacturing. Its exact mandate is expected to be unveiled “in the coming months,” when the organization has its foundation.

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