Experts say Canada’s plan to build a $267-million medical countermeasures laboratory in Winnipeg is a vital step toward heading off future pandemics, but they warn the facility faces steep hurdles around long-term funding, staffing and governance.
The federal government announced a $10.2-million design contract for the facility last week, with the finished building slated to open in 2033 next to Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML).
While the lab aims to bridge a critical gap in testing early-stage vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tools, health researchers caution that a brand-new building will accomplish little without sustained, decades-long investments in human talent.
“It’s one thing to have a building, but it’s another thing to have the human resources that will make it a world-class centre,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, a physician and professor at McGill University’s School of Population and Global Health, and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières.
“It’s safe to say that in principle it’s not a bad idea, but then you would need to really walk the talk of countermeasures.”
The facility would add capacity for preclinical trials — lab and animal testing — within Canada’s research and development pipeline. That would give scientists a dedicated place to test, for example, small batches of a promising vaccine before scaling up to clinical trials.
For now, according to NML chief operating officer Steven Guercio, space constraints mean the NML sometimes repurposes lab facilities meant for research into the most volatile pathogens — such as Ebola — in order to do preclinical tests.
Industry and academic partners would both potentially be able to use the lab spaces, Guercio said, “with the appropriate agreements in place and the appropriate screenings and vettings.”
Keith Fowke, scientific director at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s infections facility in Winnipeg, noted that Canadian university researchers frequently hit a “roadblock” when trying to move vaccine discoveries into early human safety trials because Canada lacks local cleanrooms to make test batches.
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To experts, expanding Canada’s capacity in this regard is a no-brainer. In fact, health officials have been talking about it for at least a decade, said Gary Kobinger, a former NML scientist who led the team that co-developed the world’s first successful Ebola vaccine, and now directs the Level 4 Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas.
“Like anything else, better late than never,” he said in an interview with CBC News. “It’s good news that they are moving.”
What matters most for the project, according to Kobinger, is stability in the longer term. “The important move is committing to that activity. If you build a $300-million building, hopefully you are also planning to inject funding to advance those products over the following 10 years.”
McGill’s Liu had a similar take, noting that investing in pandemic research can be politically popular during a pandemic, but the key moments are when there isn’t an immediate health threat.
“You have to have the vision of investing from beginning to end on a virus and the countermeasures necessary for it, and then carry on for several years — even during the quiet times when it’s off everybody’s radar,” Liu said.
Of particular concern to Liu is cuts made to staff at the NML just last year. “We have lost a lot of talent,” Liu said, positing that those cuts could affect the NML’s ability to bring in the world-class researchers it would need to have relevance.
“If you want to re-attract talent, you need to not only promise a building, but promise funding to get a team to do the research, pay the salaries of the people doing the work, and fund the research itself,” she said. “We’re talking about millions and millions of dollars.”
In a statement emailed to CBC News, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said that it “re-prioritized and streamlined some programs, and in some cases discontinued work” as part of a post-pandemic recalibration.
“The NML has ongoing funding to strengthen medical countermeasures capacity in Canada, and specifically to expand pre-clinical research,” the agency wrote, adding that it has a “robust talent pipeline.”
Kobinger warned of a “huge risk” if the countermeasures lab is run entirely by the government, given the potential for red tape or funding challenges.
He invoked Canada’s handling of the Ebola vaccine as a cautionary tale. While scientists at the NML successfully developed the life-saving vaccine in the 2000s, it happened amidst a culture of cutbacks, and as federal officials struggled with technology transfer and commercialization. Canada ultimately licensed the rights to a small U.S. company, which was later acquired by pharmaceutical giant Merck to handle mass manufacturing and global distribution.
Kobinger also pointed to the Biologics Manufacturing Centre (BMC) — a $130-million vaccine facility built in Montreal during the COVID-19 pandemic — as a recent example of operational delay. As of 2024, the plant still had not produced any shots. Operations were transferred to a not-for-profit entity in 2023, but the National Research Council confirmed that it still provides $17 million each year to keep it running.
PHAC defended its record, pointing to $2.5 billion in federal investments since 2018 aimed at rebuilding Canada’s life sciences sector. The agency noted that commercial hand-offs do not rest on public health officials alone, pointing to a new federal agency, Health Emergency Readiness Canada, specifically tasked with bridging reasearch and development with private industry.
But for Kobinger, adding new agencies and building labs will mean little if Ottawa repeats past mistakes with patents and paperwork.
“A lot of this project will depend on the vision of the person leading it and how they make it work within government,” he said.
