On May 11, Biolyse, a St. Catharines-based manufacturer of injectable medicines, announced an agreement with the Bolivian government to produce and export COVID-19 vaccines, if permitted by the Government of Canada.
Currently, there are over 317,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Bolivia, a country that has a total population of 11 million people.
John R. Fulton, spokesperson for Biolyse, said that the St. Catharines facility has been trying for over a two months to get the government to start the process of achieving compulsory or voluntary licensing status, and to obtain the intellectual property waiver to produce the COVID-19 vaccine.
Per Fulton, this collaboration with the government of Bolivia should satisfy the requirements for licensing and acquiring of the property waiver as laid out by the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR).