Bioniche opens animal vaccine production facility

Bioniche Life Sciences Inc has opened Canada's largest livestock vaccine manufacturing facility using $25 million in repayable loans from the federal and Ontario government's The Animal Health and Food Safety Vaccine Manufacturing Centre, located at the firm's headquarters in Belleville ON, is a scale-up facility and the first milestone in a planned $100-million project (R$, January 21/08). Funding for the facility was provided by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade's Advanced Manufacturing Investment Strategy Program ($10 million), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Agri-Opportunities Program ($5 million), the Business Development Bank of Canada ($5 million) and Industry Canada's Industrial Technologies Office ($5 million). The centre's first manufactured product will be Econiche, an e.coli cattle vaccine developed through a strategic alliance forged in 2000 with the Univ of British Columbia, the former Alberta Research Council and the Univ of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Organization....