Governments around the globe were unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and Canada was no exception, says Mike McKay. A workshop Wednesday served to launch a $15 million project to help the country respond to future pandemics by strengthening its biomanufacturing sector.

Dr. McKay, director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, co-leads the project along with Lawrence Goodridge, professor of food science at the University of Guelph. The Integrated Network for the Surveillance of Pathogens (INSPIRE) is supported by the Canada Biomedical Research Fund and the Biosciences Research Infrastructure Fund.

“Anchored by a robust and timely cross-border pathogen surveillance network, we will integrate biomanufacturing and health sector supply chains, cross-border trade and mobility, to instill resilience and build capacity in the biomanufacturing sector in Canada,” McKay says.

The June 12 meeting was conducted in hybrid fashion to include researchers from partner institutions in Guelph, Waterloo, Toronto, Ohio, and New York in discussions of pathogen surveillance, detection technologies, and supply chain issues.

“To build resilience in Canada’s biomanufacturing ecosystem, we must learn from experience to develop proactive strategies to prevent the devastating impact of infectious diseases on the biomanufacturing and health sectors and improve efficiencies moving assets across borders,” McKay says.