The University of Western Ontario did not make the cut in its bid to build Canada’s first HIV vaccine manufacturing facility, but neither did the other three finalists in the running.
Ted Hewitt, Vice-President (Research & International Relations), received a call late Friday from Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer David Butler Jones informing him Western had not been selected.
“We know for certain at this point that Western was not chosen as the location for the facility. I also know that no other site was chosen as I’ve communicated either directly or indirectly with the leaders of the other sites,” says Hewitt.
“The question is, and what we’d like to know is, ‘what is the fate of this program as a result?’ And that we don’t know yet.”
In February 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Bill Gates jointly announced collaboration between the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative (CHVI). One component of the initiative was $88 million in funding to build a Pilot Scale HIV Vaccine Manufacturing Facility – a high-tech facility that would produce vaccine to be used in clinical trials around the world.
Western was one of four organizations selected by the federal government for consideration. Upon submission, Western’s application was subjected to a review by an international panel. Hewitt was not told why Western was rejected.
“My guess is there are reasons that still are to be revealed that are not related to the quality of the applications,” he says.
Other finalists include International Consortium on Anti-Virals, a non-profit company based on the campus of Trent University; International Centre for Infectious Diseases in Winnipeg; and Laval University.
Several stakeholders from Western, the City of London, and international partners were involved in assembling the proposal. “It’s very disappointing that after all this effort and all this time that the competition will now not go ahead,” says Hewitt.
The silver lining is that London now stands “shoulder-to-shoulder with some other key sites across Canada as a player in the field of vaccine development and I think that’s good for us,” he notes.