Provincial government announces funding for Ottawa based company
Posted Apr 8, 2022 02:48:41 PM.
The provincial government announced on April 8 funding support for an Ottawa based company.
Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Nepean Lisa MacLeod revealed the provincial government is investing $600,000 through the Ontario Together Fund for Genvira Biosciences Incorporated.
Genvira Biosciences is a privately owned company specializing in viral engineering with expertise in identifying and monitoring genomic changes in viral genomes. They design, construct, and characterize customized deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses for vaccines, gene therapy and cancer immunotherapy.
“The world had to react quickly to help stop the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus,” said MPP MacLeod. “Medical research has saved countless lives and this pandemic has proven no different.”
Genvira Biosciences is investing $1.2 million to scale up the manufacturing of high-quality biotechnology products, including pseudoviruses of SARS-COVID-2 and its new variants as well as pseudoviruses for emerging viral pathogens.
These pseudoviruses will be used to enhance genomic testing capability of new variants by providing high-quality diagnostic and surveillance products.
“The world is a very small place and when it comes to a major virus, there are no borders,” said Dr. Jiahu Wang, the president of Genvira Biosciences. “We are confident that our COVID pseudovirus technology, which will be shared with scientists from Ontario and around the world, can play a role in bringing an end to this pandemic.”
