Program Item Details
TITLE: Brian Manning, Account Manager in Technology Commercialization, Alberta Research Council
SUBJECT: #8 ARC technology commercialization of e coli vaccine for cattle
SYNOPSIS: The Alberta Research Council is one of a consortium of partners involved in commercializing the cattle vaccine for e. coli 0157. Brian Manning looks after the business end of the technology commercialization process which is a significant investment for the ARC. Overwhelming as it may sound, vaccinating 30 million cattle makes more sense than some of the other options available to prevent e.coli 0157 infection in humans.
AUDIO: Download Audio (mp3 format)
TRANSCRIPT:
Intro: Also part of the cattle vaccine project is Brian Manning. He looks after the business end of commercializing the e. coli vaccine and as he explains, the project involves several partners.
Brian Manning
BM: The first aspect of our role has been to bring together the parties necessary to take the University research and to transform that into a product that can be taken out to the marketplace. So, we became involved with the researchers and inventors of the vaccine who were at University of British Columbia and the Veterinarian Infectious Diseases Organization. We have negotiated agreements with them through the Network Centres of Excellence, the Canadian Bacterial Diseases Network. And, having done that, then we, in turn, have negotiated a license with a commercial entity Bioniche Life Sciences so that they can sell the product and get it out into the marketplace.
CC: SO THIS SOUNDS LIKE A PRETTY BIG ROLE THAT YOU HAVE HERE. WHAT’S INVOLVED IN ACTUALLY TAKING THAT EARLY LABORATORY RESEARCH AND GETTING TO A POINT WHERE YOU’VE GOT SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN PUT RIGHT ON THE MARKET?
BM: Well, it’s a significant investment on our part and we have funded the development research. It basically takes the vaccine from the researchers bench where it’s produced in dozens of doses and we are developing a process, a manufacturing process that will yield millions of doses because there are thirty million cattle out there that we all hope will be vaccinated with this product. So, and to go from the dozens to the millions is not like scaling up a cake. In fact, even with the cake, as you know, you might double a recipe but if you try to five times a recipe, it would, in fact, fail and the same is the case sometimes with scaling-up scientific research. Something that works on the bench in small scale needs to be modified in order to move it forward to commercial scale. And, that’s what were involved in here.
CC: NOW WHY GO WITH A VACCINE RATHER THAN USE SOME SORT OF OTHER TREATMENT OR DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM IN OTHER WAYS?
BM: We looked at the various options for solving the problem as part of our decision to make an investment in this area. One of initial questions was should it be a human vaccine or an animal vaccine. And, in fact, when you look at the, despite the fact that this is a very serious issue and it has very serious consequences, the ‘at risk’ population is really quite small. And, doing a human vaccine, you know, is extremely difficult to do. If you look at the, you know, gargantuan effort that was required to do the meningitis vaccine just in Edmonton. Imagine, you know, trying to do a human vaccine against E.coli for all citizens of Canada or anybody that lives near cattle. I mean, it would be extremely difficult to do. Almost a logistical impossibility not to mention the very, very high expense of producing a vaccine that would be safe for use in humans. So that decision was fairly easy to say, ‘well it ought to be an animal vaccine’. And, then we looked at the competing technologies that, you know, was this vaccine really necessary? Why couldn’t something be done with meat? And, we realized that the roots by which the E. coli bacteria gets to humans is not exclusively through meat. That, as we’ve seen with Walkerton, it comes through groundwater, it comes through crops that have been irrigated with polluted water, and there are a variety of means by which the E. coli gets to humans. So, getting to the cattle which is the source of the E. coli seemed to be the most sensible solution. And, so that’s the approach we’ve taken and I believe that we’ve taken the right one. So, that we are now really focused on getting to the cattle at the source. So, you won’t hear us refer much to hamburger disease which is a term that was popular because this isn’t just exclusively hamburger disease. There are a number of ways that humans can come into contact with E. coli and each of those ways can lead to disastrous results and so our intent is to get to the source and to reduce the risk to humans.
CC: DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER ANIMAL VACCINES YOU’RE WORKING ON?
BM: We do have an animal vaccine development program. It is our primary emphasis of our Bio-Technology here. And, we are in the process of developing vaccines for other animal diseases. None at this time with the human health component that we, you know, that we are aware of with E. coli. We’re more interested in the, you know, making animals more commercially saleable because they lose weight when they’re sick and so forth and so we’re dealing with animal illnesses. But, the E coli is quite unique because of its human health benefits.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH
BM: My pleasure to talk to you.
Brian Manning is an Account Manager in Technology Commercialization at the Alberta Research Council.