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Posted at 4:00 p.m.
It appears that the World Health Organization (WHO) will refuse to accredit Medicago’s coronavirus vaccine on the grounds that the tobacco industry (Philip Morris) is a minority shareholder in the company. How come no one in the feds or at Medicago has “turned on” (pun intended here) about this restriction? Millions of dollars have been invested in the development of the vaccine, the construction of the factory, the research, the accreditation and so on.
Richard Champagne
Mr Champagne,
We are indeed dealing with quite an imbroglio. The WHO this week rejected Medicago’s vaccine, which was approved by Health Canada in February.
The reason: since 2008, the tobacco company Philip Morris has been a minority shareholder in this biotechnology company born in 1999 from the laboratories of Laval University. And it turns out that the WHO has adopted a “framework convention for tobacco control” which includes financial measures 1.
Medicago uses a cousin of the tobacco plant as a bioreactor to produce its vaccines. But according to the company, this does not explain the participation of Philip Morris in its shareholding. It is simply a concern for diversification that led the tobacco manufacturer to increase investments in the field of health several years ago. In its early days, Medicago was unable to refuse such an investment, which allowed it to continue its research.
Today, it is obvious that the announcement of the WHO is a blow for the company. Especially since few observers expect the organization to change its tune.
Since the vaccine is approved by Health Canada, it can still be marketed here. It is also not impossible that it will be approved by other regulatory agencies. But in the absence of the WHO seal, its international distribution is greatly compromised.
The federal government also finds itself in deep water. The pandemic has prompted the Trudeau government to want to provide the country with local vaccine manufacturing capacity, and Medicago represents an important part of this strategy.
At the start of the pandemic, the federal government released $183 million to allow Medicago to test its COVID-19 vaccine and help build a world-class vaccine factory in Quebec.
The federal government also purchased 20 million doses of vaccine from Medicago. Today, Canadians don’t really need it. Ottawa would like to direct them to COVAX, an international distribution mechanism. But it is impossible without the WHO seal. The federal government therefore finds itself a bit “caught up” with the doses.
Knowing the strict policy of the WHO, did Medicago and the federal government lack foresight? Today, we must admit that it looks a lot like that.
But let’s go back to 2020, to the start of the pandemic. Both Medicago and the federal government say they were then aware of the risks posed by the presence of Philip Morris in the company’s shareholding.
The catch was that Medicago was then engaged in a mad rush to develop a vaccine. The company had neither the time to think about the issue of shareholding nor the means to deprive itself of capital while it was actively seeking it to finance this new, unforeseen program.
The federal government was in the same kind of frenzy. At the time, no vaccine against COVID-19 existed and the government relied on any company that could provide it. The presence of Philip Morris in the shareholding of Medicago then seemed a peccadillo compared to the urgency of finding a vaccine.
A clear sign that everyone thought so at the time is that the multinational GlaxoSmithKline collaborated with Medicago by supplying it with an ingredient for its vaccine (an “adjuvant”) without raising the slightest objection.
We bet that if Medicago had been the only company to develop an effective vaccine against COVID-19, no one would be talking about Philip Morris today. But now that Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and many others have vaccines, the WHO can afford to be more scrupulous about Medicago.
The following ? Both Medicago and the federal government are in discussions with the WHO. But it is possible that the only solution will ultimately be to exclude Philip Morris from the shareholding. This would require negotiation which could prove difficult.
The hole dug by a possible departure of the shareholder could be filled by the majority shareholder of Medicago, the Japanese Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma. But it would also not be surprising if Quebec or Ottawa decided to take a stake in Medicago.