Federal Government Secures Access to Hundreds of Millions of Doses of Vaccine Candidates

The Prime Minister says that, the Government of Canada is actively pursuing the purchase and development of vaccines, treatments, and related supplies to protect Canadians from COVID-19 and support our recovery from the pandemic. Justin Trudeau says this includes strengthening our country’s bio-manufacturing sector and capabilities to fight future pandemics through leading-edge vaccine technology.
The Prime Minister has announced an investment of up to $173 million through the Strategic Innovation Fund in Quebec City-based Medicago. The project, valued at $428 million, is to advance Medicago’s virus-like particle vaccine. It will also establish a large-scale vaccine and antibody production facility.
The government has signed an agreement with Medicago to secure up to 76 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine candidate, enough to vaccinate 38 million people. This is the first domestically developed vaccine candidate the Government of Canada has secured.
The government will also invest up to $18.2 million in Vancouver-based bio-technology company Precision NanoSystems. This investment will support a $24.27-million project to help advance the development of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate through pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. The government is also providing up to $23.2 million in funding through the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program to advance six COVID-19 vaccine candidates in various stages of clinical trials.
Ottawa has now signed enough agreements to secure access to up to 358 million doses of different COVID-19 vaccine candidates. At this time, there are three candidates currently under review and others in clinical trials and in development.