VIDO Pilot Scale Vaccine Manufacturing Facility Among the Most Versatile in the World

The Director and CEO of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization says VIDO's newly commissioned pilot scale vaccine manufacturing facility is one of the most versatile vaccine manufacturing facilities in the world.

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 says having access to inhouse manufacturing will speed up the development and testing of new vaccines.

Quote-Dr. Volker Gerdts-Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization:

It's a really cool facility.It's probably one of the most versatile facilities in the world.It is capable of manufacturing both human and animal vaccines.
For human vaccines we have the capability to manufacture vaccines all the way up to phase 2 clinical trials and for animals we can even commercially manufacture vaccines all the way up to market penetration.

What that really means is that within the same facility we can make both human and animal vaccines, so switch over between these campaigns from a human vaccine to for example an animal vaccine.

Furthermore, the facility is tied into our high containment facility so we are actually able to make vaccines even for those pathogens that require a higher level of containment.

Lastly this facility is equipped with equipment that allows us to make all relevant vaccine technologies, from the newly developed RNA vaccines to viral vectors to protein subunit vaccines to inactivated vaccines to live attenuated vaccines, all of those can be made here in this vaccine manufacturing facility.

Dr. Gerdts says if you want to develop vaccines or therapeutics in a timely way in response to a new disease you can't rely on other organizations to manufacture the different components that go into a vaccine and you have to have inhouse capacity.