A new pilot-scale vaccine manufacturing facility in Saskatoon will speed up the development of new vaccines for both animals and humans.
The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan, has completed the construction and commissioning of its new on-site pilot-scale vaccine manufacturing facility.
VIDO director and CEO Dr. Volker Gerdts said access to in-house vaccine manufacturing will speed up the development of new vaccines.
“To develop vaccines or therapeutics in a timely way, in a rapid response to a new disease, you must have in-house capacity. You can’t rely on other organizations to manufacture the different components that go into a vaccine.”
Dr. Gerdts said, unfortunately, that occurred during COVID when there wasn’t access to such a facility. It meant outsourcing all of the manufacturing, and that always takes longer. Having access to in-house manufacturing capacity, the prototype candidate developed can come into the lab allowing for the demonstrated proof of concept in animal trials taking this prototype directly into manufacturing without wasting any time. That’s the critical factor here.
“Access to in-house manufacturing will enable us to make vaccines much faster.”
This will allow VIDO to manufacture these candidates developed in research laboratories, tested in animal models, to manufacture in-house and get to the next phase of clinical testing. This allows animals to manufacture vaccines up to market penetration commercially.
Dr. Gerdts said time matters in responding to any disease, and the goal of the G-8 countries is to have a vaccine candidate within 100 days of detecting a pandemic threat that can go into clinical testing.
He said the manufacturing facility is probably one of the most versatile facilities in the world. It is capable of manufacturing both human and animal vaccines. The facility can manufacture human vaccines up to phase two clinical trials. And for animals and commercial, the facility can manufacture vaccines up to market penetration.
“Within the same facility, we can make both human and animal vaccines to switch between these campaigns from a human vaccine to, for example, an animal vaccine.”

Dr. Volker Gerdts

Furthermore, the facility ties into the high containment facility, making it possible to make vaccines even for those pathogens that require a higher level of containment. And lastly, this facility has the equipment to make all relevant vaccine technologies. So from the newly developed RNA vaccines to viral vectors, protein subunit vaccines, inactivated vaccines, and life-attenuated vaccines.
And as he mentioned, for animal vaccines, VIDO will be able to even commercially manufacture vaccines and serve those markets that need these new vaccines. So, for example, one of the projects is developing a new vaccine for sheep in Western Canada. The sheep population is so small that it could be of great economic interest to large commercial manufacturers.
“But VIDO can serve this niche population by making a vaccine for it and providing these producers with a new vaccine for this respiratory disease that currently is causing many problems in Western Canada,” said Dr. Gerdts.
The VIDO business model is to develop vaccines as a research organization.
“We do not want to be a commercial vaccine manufacturer but work in partnership with larger organizations with small and large pharma, with collaborators from around the world.”
VIDO develops these new vaccines and gets them to the manufacturer and the populations needing them. Then to out-license the technologies to companies who can commercially produce these vaccines in the future.
Dr. Gerdts said it is enormous to reach the higher level of containment because it’s recognizing that VIDO is the Canada Center for Pandemic Research. The leading institute in the country to respond to emerging diseases, new diseases that can potentially cause the next pandemic.
“And so by upgrading our ability to work even in containment level four, which is the highest level of containment, it allows us to work now in the future with any pathogen, whether it’s a human or an animal pathogen.” •
— By Harry Siemens