Having to develop, produce, procure and distribute drugs and protective gear to fight COVID-19 led to extraordinary co-operation between the federal government and the private sector, “but the problem is that’s gone,” Oliver Technow said Thursday at the industry’s Bionation conference in Ottawa. (The Logic)

Talking point: Technow’s company Biovectra, based in Charlottetown, sells consulting and manufacturing services to pharma companies and has received tens of millions of dollars in public support amid massive new federal subsidies for the sector. Technow warned that other countries have done the same things and Canada has only caught up. He was on a panel that included Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos—who had left by the time Technow lamented the loss of the department’s pandemic-driven flexibility, which once got Biovectra an answer to a query overnight on a weekend. The minister had acknowledged the importance of public-private co-operation; expanding the sector’s workforce and investing in preparations for unknown future threats.