Moderna partners with University of Toronto
The U.S.-based biotechnology firm Moderna is undertaking its first partnership with a Canadian university on research collaboration.
Researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T) will work with Moderna through a partnership framework agreement. This collaboration will include, but is not limited to, fields of medical research such as biochemistry, molecular genetics and biomedical engineering.
Moderna notes that “collaboration is an integral part of [their] success.”
The firm has developed an alliance with several strategic collaborators to help advance “the development of mRNA medicines.”
In January of 2016, the firm “entered a global health project framework agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance mRNA-based development projects for various infectious diseases.”
Since as early as 2004 — and nearly every year thereafter — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has also committed grants to the University of Toronto for various initiatives. The grand total of those grants that occurred over nearly two decades is just shy of $28,000,000.
The subsegment of U of T, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health also collaborates with the World Health Organization on health promotion. The DLSPH Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases also lists GAVI as a key partner.
The Vaccine Alliance, also known as GAVI, is focused on the “Power of Partnerships” in which it boasts core partnerships with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In a photo-op posted by U of T announcing this partnership, it is shown that the Moderna delegates took a tour of the Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories and the Combined Containment Level 3 (also called C-CL3) facility.
This is the only lab in the Greater Toronto Area that is equipped for safe and secure research on Risk Group 3 pathogens and is therefore a crucial component of the country’s capacity to develop therapies and cell biologics related to infectious diseases.
The lab's director, Scott Gray-Owen, noted that C-CL3 is one of the pillars of U of T’s Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (acronymed EPIC), which aims to connect researchers from U of T and its partner hospitals with industry and government agencies in a manner that strengthens Canada’s capacity to respond to infectious diseases.
Interestingly, U of T is also home to the Institute for Pandemics which is another subset of the DLSPH.
The Vohra Miller Foundation (VMF) had helped establish the University of Toronto’s Institute for Pandemics in August of 2020 with a $1 million investment. VMF was founded by Sabina Vohra-Miller and her husband Craig Miller. Sabina appears to be heavily embedded in the biopharmaceutical space with previous employers being Amgen, Roche Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals.
Looks like the Pharma-funded technocracy continues to infiltrate Canadian institutions unabated.