The University of Saskatchewan's VIDO-InterVac has contracted two Canadian pharmaceutical companies to manufacture ingredients for its potential COVID-19 vaccine to be used in the first stages of human clinical trials. Biodextris, a company based near Montreal, has also confirmed it will manufacture part of the vaccine for early-stage human clinical trials planned to begin later this year, pending approval. The Saskatchewan-based team is working toward human clinical trials by conducting trials with animals to establish its vaccine is effective and safe. It is now working with hamsters to attempt to show the effect of the vaccine and bolster the evidence it needs before human clinical trials can be approved. Vaccines need to go through three phases of human clinical trials before they can be approved by Health Canada, a process that usually takes five to 10 years.

Source: CBC News July 29, 2020 22:07 UTC