Moderna has struck a deal with the state of Ottawa to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant to supply the much-needed COVID-19 vaccines.
The deal aims to “build the foundation to support Canada with direct access to rapid pandemic response capabilities and to provide access to Moderna’s vaccines in development for respiratory viruses,” said the company.
Moderna chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, thanked the Canadian government for its “faith in our data, science and early confidence in our mRNA platform in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic”. He added: “As a company, we are committed to global public health. While we are still responding to this pandemic, we also want to ensure we and society learn from it. We believe that this innovative business model will have global impact and implications.”
While Canada is now making headlines for the speed of its COVID-19 vaccination programme, with 60% of its population now fully vaccinated, up from only 6% in early June, the programme had a shaky start.
Repeated delays and vaccine supply shortages earlier this year as the country struggled to import doses from the countries that manufacture the vaccines shone a light on Canada’s homegrown life sciences industry.
The deal with Moderna is the second in three months focused on bringing mRNA technology to Canada. In May, innovation minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, announced it would provide $199m to Resilience Technologies, half the cost of expanding its existing plant which could make up to 640 million doses of mRNA vaccines every year.
The Moderna plant aims to provide domestically manufactured mRNA vaccines against respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, seasonal influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, as well as potential future vaccines.
Rejuvenating Canada’s depleted life sciences sector is a priority for prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Canada has committed to spending $2.2bn to support biotechnology research and commercial production over the next seven years, half to directly target companies that want to expand or set up production lines in the country.
More than $1.2bn has been committed, including $600m for several COVID-19 vaccine and therapy clinical trials, and $126m for the National Research Council to build a biologics production plant in Montreal. This facility, nearing completion, will manufacture vaccines for Novavax once the company has overcome its internal issues and file for US approval.
Canada also promised more than $400m to help Sanofi complete a $925m expansion of its vaccine production plant in Toronto. The existing plant mainly makes flu vaccines, and the expansion will focus on that as well.