When the pandemic slowed much of the world down, a team of scientists at McMaster University moved quickly, leveraging prior research on tuberculosis vaccines to develop new inhaled COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

Today, a phase two clinical trial for the AeroVax inhaled COVID-19 vaccine is nearing completion with development costs at roughly $10 million — a mere sliver of the $50-100 million cost of typical vaccine development.

The desire to increase speed and lower cost of development of promising new health innovations was a shared ambition of many researchers at McMaster and heralded a culture shift that was the impetus behind the creation of NexusHealth – Canada’s first ever academically housed manufacturing lab.