Can you speak to the relation between PnuVax and SaudiVax?
SaudiVax is a joint venture between PnuVax, a US company, and UYC Inc. a Saudi R&D healthcare company. Through making and selling vaccines in the US for many years, I saw that Saudi was constantly chronically short of vaccines. Saudi has the money to buy vaccines, but what they were not realizing is that the lead time on vaccines is approximately one year - they would send us orders for multi million doses and would want them in weeks. In 2002, I tried for the first time to set up a vaccine company in Saudi but failed. In 2009, with the great flu epidemic, they invited me to come set up a company but ultimately nobody wanted to invest. Finally, a Saudi doctor who is our partner, came to me and he had the right connections medically, politically and socially to make a joint venture happen. We are currently half way through the construction of our first building and will start the construction on the second building soon, which will be located in NEOM City. We have multiple products in development and recently signed a technology licensing agreement with one of the Saudi universities to use their technology for making vaccines, and we are the only real bottoms up vaccine and biotech company in the region.
Considering these developments in Saudi, where is PnuVax’s core focus today?
Our geographical main focus is still on Canada, but our real core focus is on making large quantities of low cost vaccines for the areas of the world where people do not have access to them. The pneumonia vaccine has always been our prime focus, and I was responsible for all the manufacturing aspects of making the very first pneumonia vaccine for children that launched in 2000. Even though there is a highly effective vaccine, the largest killer of babies under five is still pneumonia due to the fact that a third of the babies in the world do not get the immunization because it is too expensive and too difficult to get. Our real target is thus getting affordable vaccines to underserved children in areas where it is not easily accessible.
Are you looking for funding and what does the current investor profile look like?
Traditionally, we have self-financed and have also attained a few grants. For the first time now, we are starting to look for private equity funding. Investor profiles are region-specific, for the benefit of the area. People are thinking not just that they are going to invest and make a profit, but also saying “I'm investing money so that my country or region will be better off”, both in terms of vaccine self-sufficiency and high level jobs for well educated people.
Can you elaborate on PnuVax interest in an IP for yellow fever?
Today's yellow fever vaccine was made in the mid-1930s, and its many side effects are hindering many people – young, old, and immunocompromised – to use it, leading to the outbreaks we have seen in South America and Africa. In the early 2000’s I was involved in developing a safer vaccine for yellow fever, but that company got bought out for different products. PnuVax has now bought that yellow fever IP, and we are currently completing the regulatory process to make it available for a larger global population.
What are PnuVax’s main objectives for the coming three years?
Our highest priority is to get the pneumonia and yellow fever vaccines out to areas where they were previously not available.
We also have other vaccines and technologies in the pipeline that we want to bring forward. What differentiates PnuVax is that we have a strong background in manufacturing technologies, and by taking the good, basic technology of how you make a vaccine, and joining that with the best available manufacturing technologies today to maximize yield and minimize lead time, we can deliver vaccines when and where people need them at an affordable price.
Is there a final message you want to leave our international investor audience with?
There is no doubt that biopharmaceuticals have been a terrific investment opportunity as the returns are enormous over time. Another aspect is that, it is one thing to invest purely financially on the stock market, but these investments are improving the life of people and so there is a huge social impact for investments in biopharmaceuticals. The efforts in the avoidance of disease and health problems touch us all personally, and the investments that go into them make a profit, but they also have this very strong personal effect in improving people’s quality of life, which in turn greatly boosts the economy. The wise investor, I think, is looking at both a direct financial return, and also a social and human wellbeing return. COVID has taught us all that maximizing individual health enormously increases the quality of life for everybody, and this has an enormous positive financial impact on all aspects of the global economy.
