¶ Providence Therapeutics
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Providence Therapeutics Holdings Inc. is a Canadian biotechnology company based in Calgary, Alberta, with additional operations in Toronto, Ontario. The company specializes in messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.[1]
¶ History
Providence was founded in 2015 in order to develop vaccines targeting cancer.
¶ COVID-19
In April 2020, Providence created a fully “made-in-Canada” mRNA COVID-19 vaccine called PTX-COVID19-B.[2] The company collaborated with Northern RNA, another Canadian biotechnology company, who provided the “basic building blocks” of RNA for Providence's vaccine product.[3] Preclinical trials, including animal trials, were performed by Mario Ostrowski at the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science at St. Michael's Hospital, in collaboration with the University of Toronto.[4] By August 2020, Providence reported positive results from animal trials and urged the Canadian government to provide funding for human trials.[5]
One year later in April 2021, Providence founder Brad Sorenson announced he was fed up with the lack of support from the Canadian government and would be relocating operations overseas.[6]
On September 13, 2021, Providence announced that it had entered into two separate contracts with Everest Medicines to license rights to their mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidates to markets in China, Southeast Asia and Pakistan, and to establish a broader global partnership around the mRNA platform.[7]
¶ Funding
Pre-clinical trials for PTX-COVID19-B were funded by National Research Council Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Ontario HIV Treatment Network, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, and the Juan and Stefania Speck fund for COVID-19 and other virus infections.[4:1]
Providence received a $5 million grant from National Research Council Canada in 2021, though the majority of its funding has been private.[3:1] Founder Brad Sorenson alleged at the time to have already spent $10 million in their COVID-19 vaccine development.
In November 2021, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $2,118,334 to Providence Therapeutics to develop more cost-effective mRNA vaccines.[8]
¶ Patents
Providence's COVID-19 vaccine is based on patent CA3096009, filed October 9, 2020.[4:2] Listed inventors are Eric Marcusson, Jumai Aeola Abioye, and Natalia Martin Orozco.[9]
¶ Rumours
On February 13, 2022, an article was published on Substack that claimed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was a former or current owner of Providence, and as such, had profited greatly from the worldwide use of COVID-19 vaccines.[10] The article alleged that Providence-related patents owned by the University of British Columbia (UBC) had been transferred into Trudeau's name (with the help of Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates), subsequently licensed to Moderna and Pfizer, and then sold to Everest Medicines in China.
¶ External links
About Providence Therapeutics. (2022). Providence Therapeutics. https://web.archive.org/web/20220711155818/https://providencetherapeutics.com/about.html ↩︎
PTX–COVID19–B. Providence Therapeutics. Retrieved July 11, 2022, from http://archive.today/2022.07.11-164129/https://providencetherapeutics.com/pipeline/ptx-covid19-b.html ↩︎
Villani, M. (2021, February 2). Providence Therapeutics seeking federal support for “made-in-Canada” COVID-19 vaccine. CTV News Calgary. http://archive.today/2022.07.11-165610/https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/providence-therapeutics-seeking-federal-support-for-made-in-canada-covid-19-vaccine-1.5292681 ↩︎ ↩︎
Liu, J., Budylowski, P., Samson, R., Griffin, B. D., Babuadze, G., Rathod, B., Colwill, K., Abioye, J. A., Schwartz, J. A., Law, R., Yip, L., Ahn, S. K., Chau, S., Naghibosadat, M., Arita, Y., Hu, Q., Yue, F. Y., Banerjee, A., Hardy, W. R., & Mossman, K. (2022). Preclinical evaluation of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine PTX-COVID19-B. Science Advances, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj9815 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Blanchfield, M., & The Canadian Press. (2020, August 5). Canadian company urges human trials after COVID-19 vaccine results in mice. Lethbridge News Now. http://archive.today/2022.07.11-231229/https://lethbridgenewsnow.com/2020/08/05/canadian-company-urges-human-trials-after-covid-19-vaccine-results-in-mice/ ↩︎
Tasker, J. P. (2021, April 30). COVID-19 vaccine maker Providence says it’s leaving Canada after calls for more federal support go unanswered. CBC News. https://web.archive.org/web/20220711165025/https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/providence-therapeutics-pulling-out-canada-1.6009068 ↩︎
Forester, N., Wong, N., Robinson, D., & Lococo, E. (2021, September 13). Providence Therapeutics Enters into Comprehensive Agreements with Everest Medicines to Advance mRNA Vaccines and Therapies, including COVID-19 Vaccines, in Emerging Markets in Asia. Providence Therapeutics. http://archive.today/2022.07.12-143338/https://providencetherapeutics.com/press-details/providence-therapeutics-enters-into-comprehensive-agreements-with-everest-medicines-to-advance-mrna-vaccines-and-therapies-including-covid-19-vaccines-in-emerging-markets-in-asia.html ↩︎
Providence Therapeutics. (2021, November). Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. http://archive.today/2022.06.14-010933/https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants/2021/11/inv036094 ↩︎
CA3107232 Compositions and methods for the prevention and/or treatment of COVID-19. (2022, April 9). World Intellectual Property Organization. http://archive.today/2022.07.12-015513/https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CA357024233&_fid=CA357023544 ↩︎
bilbobitch. (2022, February 13). Trudeau Recently Sold the mRNA Patents to China for $500M USD - Trudeau may have won the lottery. Bilbobitch’s Newsletter; Substack. http://archive.today/2022.07.08-224904/https://bilbobitch.substack.com/p/trudeau-recently-sold-the-mrna-patents ↩︎