A COVID-19 vaccine developed by a Quebec pharmaceutical company is facing a hurdle in the approval process outside of Canada due to the company's links to the tobacco industry.
“The WHO and the UN have a very strict policy regarding engagement with the tobacco and arms industry, so it’s very likely it won’t be accepted for emergency use listing.” Takashi Nagao, president and CEO of Medicago, said in a statement to CTV News that the company has not yet received any official communication from the WHO.
Philip Morris Investments, a subsidiary of Philip Morris International, has been a shareholder of Medicago since 2008 and owns about one third of the company, according to the Swiss-American cigarette manufacturing company's website. The Japan-based Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation is the majority shareholder of Medicago.
This is daft. WHO needs to focus on medicine not politics.
Medicago a small Canadian vaccine producer. Moderna physer 2 large billion dollar vaccine manufacturers. 1 in U.S. the other in Europe, neither can afford another manufacturer taking a piece of the pie. Especially when Maderna just set the stage for dose 4.