Protecting Canadians and building sovereignty with domestic vaccine manufacturing

When a new infectious disease emerges, time matters. The ability to move quickly, from understanding the threat to developing innovative solutions, can determine how well a country protects its people, its economy, and its critical systems.

The University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) provides this capability for Canada at its Centre for Pandemic Research, bringing discovery, testing, and manufacturing together under one roof.

Central to this approach is VIDO’s Vaccine Development Centre (VDC), a biomanufacturing facility that enables the domestic development and production of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for both human and animal health.

The establishment of the VDC in 2023 helped address Canada’s shortage of flexible vaccine manufacturing capacity, increasing the likelihood that Canadian-developed vaccine candidates can be produced domestically and without delay. By uniting VIDO’s world-leading high-containment research expertise with advanced manufacturing capacity, the VDC creates a seamless pipeline from discovery to production.

The VDC plays a critical role in bolstering national readiness for outbreaks, pandemics, and emerging biothreats by enabling the rapid development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures targeting high-consequence pathogens. Maintaining this capability within Canada strengthens national health security and sovereignty, reduces reliance on foreign vaccine manufacturers during periods of global disruption, and allows Canada to contribute meaningfully to international response efforts when capacity elsewhere is constrained.

“Preparedness is a key form of national security,” said Dr. Volker Gerdts, director and CEO of VIDO. “The Vaccine Development Centre gives Canada additional capacity to produce new vaccines and therapeutics domestically. By integrating VIDO’s high-containment research with local production, we are ensuring that critical vaccines and medical countermeasures can be developed and produced in Canada.”

As Canada’s only GMP-compliant, containment level 3-capable manufacturing facility, the VDC provides unique collaboration and contract opportunities with government agencies, researchers, and industry partners domestically and around the world. Current work within the VDC includes an mRNA vaccine for fish, a recombinant protein vaccine for cattle in Africa, a live-attenuated vaccine for pigs, and a broadly protective recombinant protein vaccine against coronaviruses for humans. Together these projects demonstrate the facility’s versatility across species, platforms and global contexts.

The VDC represents a modern view of national security, one that recognizes scientific preparedness and manufacturing capability as essential infrastructure. In an increasingly uncertain world, investments by the Government of Canada and the Government of Saskatchewan in VIDO’s VDC strengthens Canada’s independence, protects human and animal health, and ensures Canadians are better prepared for the next emerging infectious disease threat.