Grants and Contributions

Project activities include: (1) providing water and hygiene items to families in temporary shelters; (2) providing immediate water, sanitation and hygiene services to temporary and field hospitals, and emergency repair of plumbing systems in damaged hospitals; (3) providing health facilities with personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection prevention and control (IPC) materials, vaccine commodities and acute medicine cold chain support, health emergency kits, obstetric, newborn and midwifery kits and nutrition supplies; (4) providing child friendly spaces in affected areas and relocation sites; and (5) providing mental health and psychosocial support services to children and caregivers.

The goal of this project is to develop and clinically evaluate an oral, room temperature stable DNA vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV2. The project will involve the advancement of the bacTRL-Spike COVID-19 vaccine candidate through preclinical development, process development manufacturing scale-up, and first-in-human clinical testing.

In response to the global crisis, IMV has initiated the development of a vaccine to protect against the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe our targeted peptide epitope approach has the potential to optimize and exceed the safety and efficacy profile of more conventional vaccines. DPX-COVID-19 utilizes a multi-target approach, to optimize immune response against virus’ weaknesses, enhance efficacy at preventing infection and reduce potential for immune escape, even in case of a virus mutation. Fully synthetic, DPX-COVID-19 has the potential for fast and large-scale manufacturing to supply a significant number of doses rapidly compared to more conventional vaccines.

The purpose of this funding opportunity is to support readiness preparations for CIRN to undertake urgent activities related to COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials and to provide vaccine-related research outcomes that will inform effective, equitable and timely COVID-19 public health decision-making. The proposal will address ALL of the following objectives:
• Act with a sense of urgency and coordinate with all relevant stakeholders, including federal, provincial and territorial partners, to ensure Canadian readiness for COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Meeting this objective will help to ensure sufficient COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial capacity and infrastructure are in place when needed and will support the accelerated evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine(s) in Canada.
• Proactively communicate with all relevant national and international stakeholders to ensure CIRN is aware of, and aligned with (wherever possible), global COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial strategies to provide the highest possible level of evidence on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine(s).
• Assess various models of population prioritization and perform modelling to support the development of evidence-based recommendations for effective and equitable program design and implementation, and knowledge mobilization to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Prepare the general public, high-risk populations and the public health community for deployment of COVID-19 vaccine(s), which includes coordinating and/or conducting research related to vaccine hesitancy, acceptance and uptake, and the identification of targeted and culturally appropriate communication and roll-out strategies to optimize uptake.
• Seek opportunities for harmonized data collection, open data sharing, and real-world data sharing with relevant knowledge-users to support a timely and effective COVID-19 public health response within and across all jurisdictions in Canada.

• Accelerate the availability of high-quality and real-time evidence to support Canada’s rapid response to the global pandemic in order to better prevent, detect, treat and manage COVID-19;
• Develop, test, and study the implementation of effective interventions to prevent, detect, treat, and manage COVID-19 at the individual and/or population levels by reorienting or amplifying existing research platforms, networks, and trials as well as funding new research projects within existing and established research infrastructure;
• Enable Canadian engagement and coordination in national and international large-scale trials and better enable harmonized data collection, sharing of data, quasi-experimental and observational studies, and rapid large-scale evaluation of impact;
• Provide evidence to inform clinical and health system management and public health response, and/or decision-making and planning within and across jurisdictions in Canada and internationally; and
• Enhance local, national and/or international collaborative efforts, including in low- and middle-income countries, to mitigate the rapid spread of COVID-19 and related negative consequences.

Entos has developed Covigenix VAX-001, a DNA Proteo-Lipid Vehicle (PLV) vaccine intended for the prevention of COVID-19 infection by SARS-CoV-2. In this project, Entos will advance the VAX-001 vaccine candidate through Phase 1 clinical trials to establish its safety and immunogenicity in healthy adults.

Providence Therapeutics, Canada’s leading mRNA vaccine manufacture, is manufacturing an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19.

Using O-glycan biomarkers, a vaccine against Covid-19 virus will be confirmed as non-toxic and then tested at the clinical level (phase I).

This collaborative project engages multiple academic groups across Canada to develop and evaluate 3 different vaccine products with unparalleled durability. Enmeshing scientific expertise in various fields with the TCRyption technology, our vaccine products aim to provide durable protection against COVID-19 for the Canadian public.

Equitable access to a vaccine represents one of the greatest hopes to contain and ultimately suppress the pandemic, lessen the burden on developing country health systems, and speed up their economic recovery.

In the implementation of COVID-19 vaccine efforts, CEPI will ensure that awardees addressing sex- and gender-based differences following the WHO’s 2016 Guidance for Managing Ethical Issues in Infectious Disease Outbreaks throughout the research and development process.