Virus Variants Made Medicago’s Vaccine ‘Irrelevant’: CEO

A vial of a plant-derived COVID-19 vaccine candidate, developed by Medicago, is shown in Quebec City on July 13, 2020. (The Canadian Press/HO, Medicago)

The head of vaccine maker Medicago explained to MPs why the company never delivered the promised doses to Canada, saying that the evolution of the virus had made their product “irrelevant.”

Toshifumi Tada, president and CEO of Medicago, testified to the House of Commons health committee on Dec. 11, as MPs conduct a study on how the Canadian government spent over $300 million on the vaccine maker for no doses.

Medicago, which was based in Quebec City, was developing a novel plant-based vaccine platform against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The company was one of seven that received contracts from Ottawa before having a product to put to market, with the government hedging its bets to obtain a viable vaccine candidate.

By the time Medicago’s Covifenz vaccine received approval from Health Canada in February 2022, other products had been on the market for over a year. The virus had also mutated a number of times, and vaccination was proving increasingly ineffective at stopping infection from the Omicron variant.

Mr. Tada said that after receiving approval, Medicago had to deal with challenges in scaling up production.

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“We started to work on it, and our experts believed we will be able to fix it, but we knew it will take time,” he said. Medicago then renegotiated with Ottawa to have the first doses delivered by the end of 2022, he added, with the initial delivery of 20 million doses being expected by the end of 2021.

“While we worked [on] our internal challenges, we started to observe [the] market evolving a lot, because we started to see a lot of new variants arising that made our vaccine irrelevant,” said Mr. Tada.

Clinical trials for Covifenz had reportedly demonstrated 71 percent efficacy against infection from the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and 100 percent efficacy against severe disease.

Government data from around the time Covifenz was approved showed much lower protection against infection than what was advertised by other vaccine manufacturers with products on the market, as well as decreasing protection over time.

“Vaccine effectiveness against infection, symptomatic disease, and transmission with two doses was initially ~<50 to 60%, but waned over time to near zero after six months,” wrote the Public Health Agency of Canada in a Feb. 28, 2022, document entered as evidence in the travel vaccine mandate court challenge.

In October 2021, the federal government mandated COVID-19 vaccination to travel by air, rail, and some marine vessels, and to work in the public service and federally-regulated sectors.

The first wave of the Omicron variant ripped through Canada a few weeks after. Vaccine manufacturers have since developed products to target Omicron, but they’re constantly outpaced by the virus’s evolution.

Health Canada authorized products from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech this fall to target the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant, which now accounts for around 7 percent of SARS-CoV-2 variants in Canada as of Nov. 26. The dominant variant is currently EG.5.

‘Not Required’

In the context of a mutating virus and the abundance of products from other manufacturers, the Canadian government told Medicago it wouldn’t take delivery of its novel plant-based vaccine.

“The other vaccines that were available meant that the Medicago ... doses were not required,” Health Minister Mark Holland told the health committee on Dec. 6.

Public Services and Procurement Canada made a $150 million advanced purchase agreement with Medicago. Mr. Tada said that money was used to fund the manufacturing of the vaccine “at risk,” and was used for the purchase of raw materials and the hiring of staff.

Industry Canada also provided $173 million to the company for the establishment of a large-scale manufacturing facility.

The federal government announced last week that $40 million of that amount was recovered as part of a settlement with Mitsubishi Chemical Group, which owns Medicago. Intellectual property, research and development assets, and equipment are also being transferred to Canadian company Aramis Biotechnologies, which is piloted by former Medicago employees.

Medicago had announced in February this year it was shutting down its operations in Quebec City, citing “significant changes to the COVID-19 vaccine landscape” and a review of global demand. Its vaccine had been rejected by the World Health Organization due to Medicago having tobacco giant Philip Morris International as a shareholder.