First clinical trial for potential coronavirus vaccine approved by Health Canada

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Saturday that the Canadian Center for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University has been given the go-ahead by federal health authorities to begin clinical trials of a possible vaccine candidate.

Trudeau said the National Research Council of Canada will work alongside the manufacturers of the potential vaccine so that it would manufactured domestically should the trial be successful.

“If these vaccine trials are successful we could produce and distribute it here at home,” Trudeau said at a press briefing outside his home in Ottawa.

So far, Health Canada has authorized 33 clinical trials for supportive care or treatments for COVID-19. The vaccine trial announced on Saturday marks the first approved Canadian endeavor at possibly finding a cure for the disease.

The announcement comes several days after the health agency authorized use of Covid-19 serological tests, or antibody tests, in the country.

The Italian-made test, the DiaSorin LIAISON, was approved by Health Canada on Tuesday and will be used Canadian labs in an effort to determine if blood samples contain COVID-19 antibodies—evidence that an individual has been exposed to the virus and recovered, or showed no symptoms at all.

The federal government has made a billion-dollar investment in medical research to fight the coronavirus, which includes $23 million to support pre-clinical testing and clinical trials of a possible vaccine in Canada and $29 million for the general production of vaccines.

Experts have said this puts Canada in an encouraging position to manufacture a vaccine within their own borders, if and when one is approved, as countries around the world have raced to be the first to find a cure.

There is still much that needs to be done before the approval of a clinical trial turns into a viable solution to the virus, however.

“Research and development take time, and must be done right, but this is encouraging news,” Trudeau said Saturday.

Vaccines are classified as biologic drugs under the Canadian Food and Drugs Act. This means that, according to Health Canada, biologic drugs differ from chemical drugs in that they come from living organisms, which have more variables to consider than chemical drugs.

“Biologic drugs require more regulatory oversight than chemical drugs,” reads the Health Canada website.

Clinical trials usually include three separate phases of studies conducted on people before a vaccine can be approved for general use. The studies begin with a few subjects, before they are broadened to include hundreds, perhaps thousands of subjects.

The process to find a viable vaccine is a lengthy one, but the process could be expedited considering the circumstances.