Introducing the new ACPA Seminar Series, a monthly webinar series including various topics of interest related to advancing the Chemical Profession in Alberta. For the seventh seminar in this series, we are happy to introduce Dr. Jared Davis, President of Providence Therapeutics to speak on 'Vaccine Development in a Pandemic ' on January 25, 2022.  Each seminar will be eligible for 1 PDC credit.


Agenda


7:45 - 7:59 PM MT - Networking

8:00 - 9:00 PM MT - Presentation and Q&A


Vaccine Development in a Pandemic 


mRNA vaccines have been in development for 20 plus years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, none of the mRNA vaccines had advanced past Phase 2 Clinical Trials and while early efficacy data was promising, mRNA vaccines were considered too costly to overtake traditional vaccine technology for infectious disease. This all changed with the onset of the pandemic. mRNA vaccines were the fastest to respond, the most efficacious, and have become the vaccine of choice in the developed world. 

 

Providence Therapeutics mission is to make mRNA therapeutics available to those that need them most including the developing world. Founded in 2015, Providence Therapeutics was a cancer therapeutics startup focused on mRNA immunotherapies. When the pandemic hit, the data generated during the development of our cancer therapies gave us the confidence that these therapies could be applied to a highly effective COVID-19 vaccine. We started development of our vaccine in early 2020, starting our first Phase 1 Clinical Trial less than a year later in January of 2021 with a team of about 15 people. Our Phase 1 data show that the Providence vaccine is safe and effective, with antibody titers comparable to the Pfizer vaccine. We are now in the final stages of our Phase 2 Clinical Trial and are the only Canadian vaccine company accepted into the WHO Phase 3 Solidarity Trial. We expect to complete our clinical trials in 2022 and be approved for commercial supply in the second half of this year. Additionally, we have increased our production capacity to 10 million doses of vaccine per month and reduced vaccine prices to make mRNA vaccines accessible to low-income countries.      




Speaker Bio


Dr. Jared Davis,
President of Providence Therapeutics

Dr. Jared Davis is President of Providence Therapeutics, Calgary, an innovative vaccine company, that is developing a made-in-Canada mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Dr Davis graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.S. in biochemistry. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University where he made breakthrough discoveries on mechanisms of mRNA-regulation by ribosomes and on riboswitches.

 

Previously, he was the Vice President of operations and manufacturing at Arcturus Therapeutics in San Diego, CA. Prior to Arcturus Therapeutics, he was the Director of Synthetic Process Development at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Boston, MA. Dr Davis is currently leading Providence Therapeutics through late phase clinical development of the novel mRNA vaccine, PTX-COVID19-B. Providence has partnered with Emergent Biosolutions (Gaithersburg, MD) to manufacture the vaccine at Emergent's Winnipeg facility. The Manitoba government has expressed interest in purchasing up to 2 million doses. Providence Therapeutics, an Alberta company, is a world leader in mRNA vaccine technology. In addition to his leadership at Providence, Dr Davis is a founder and director of Northern RNA, a Canadian-based contract development and manufacturing organization.


Registration Information


Cost:  FREE

Registration Deadline: January 23, 2022


>> Register today!


If you are not an ACPA member, you can create an account to access the Member Registration link above. If you have questions, contact the ACPA office at [email protected].