An Ontario firm’s planned scale-up of production for an E. coli vaccine for cattle is now fully financed, the company announced Wednesday.
Pharmaceutical firm Bioniche Life Sciences of Belleville said it has picked up an extension on a pre-existing $7.6 million contribution agreement with Industry Canada from its Industrial Technologies Office.
The amended agreement extends the timeline for completion of the scale-up of Bioniche’s vaccine production facility at Belleville, to March 31, 2013.
With that extension in place, however, Bioniche said it can now complete the scale-up project over the next two years — giving the company capacity for “a minimum of 40 million doses” of the vaccine, which would reduce the amount of E. coli 0157:H7 shed by cattle.
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The Industry Canada agreement gives Bioniche a total of $25 million in financing, including $10 million in provincial economic development and trade funds, $5 million via the Business Development Bank of Canada and $5 million through the federal ag department’s Agri-Opportunities program.
“The assistance of these programs has provided a favourable weighted average cost of capital and the terms of the funding will permit repayment from vaccine revenues,” said CEO Graeme McRae in a release.
“The fact that the majority of this financing is coming from various levels of government demonstrates recognition of the public health importance of the E. coli O157:H7 vaccine and future food safety vaccines that will be produced in our Belleville facility.”
The company said its vaccine is unique in that it helps to reduce shedding of an organism that, while potentially lethal to humans, causes no disease in cattle.
Bioniche has already picked up approval to distribute its vaccine under the Permit to Release Veterinary Biologics regulations of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The U.S. Department of Agriculture in February granted eligibility for conditional licensing of the vaccine.
