The Moderna plant that will be established in Montreal will eventually have a production capacity of 100 million doses per year, both for vaccines against COVID-19 and influenza. It is not yet known where the infrastructure will be located on the island.
Posted at 10:30 a.m.
Updated at 12:29 p.m.
“The arrival of Moderna will create hundreds of good jobs and will continue to stimulate talent here in science,” also confirmed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday during a press conference held in Montreal. His government wants to “create an environment where there will be an effervescence of research and production”.
Wednesday, The Press revealed that Montreal has beaten Toronto to host this pharmaceutical giant’s RNA vaccine production plant. The news had been expected for a few months already. The exact location of the factory is still unknown, but several “strategic sectors” of the island have already been identified, according to our information. Moderna aims to begin construction as early as this summer.
“We can say that Quebec won the battle,” said Premier François Legault, with a smile on his face, boasting that his province will host the plant, and not Ontario. “What great news for our autonomy to say that we will have this factory for vaccines manufactured here,” he insisted.
“historic” day
On the spot, the president of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, meanwhile spoke of “historic news”. “It’s a beautiful project in a beautiful country. […] We are really very excited to build this factory, but also a relationship for decades to come. “Since RNA is an information molecule, we want to make it available to the best scientists in the world,” he added, arguing that McGill University’s expertise will be crucial.
According to the Premier of Quebec, the advantage of the arrival of a player like Moderna in Montreal is primarily economic. “If we want to continue to reduce the wealth gap with our neighbours, we have to increase the average wage. And there, we will have paying jobs, ”he said. He hopes to see the culture “change” in Quebec in the way universities work with the business community.
“Working with companies takes nothing away from universities. On the contrary, it allows us to do more,” he argued, saying he wanted to multiply the “zones of innovation” in the province that do “applied and commercialized” research. Mr. Bancel does not rule out increasing his activities in Canada over time. “It is possible in the future that we will do more [en matière de production], here or in another province. We will look at the needs, ”he limited himself to saying.
In total, the plant will cost 180 million, according to what François Legault said. Ottawa, for its part, will inject an additional budget to buy vaccines from the new factory. “We are going to invent the future of vaccines here, at home”, argued François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, speaking of a major step for the research ecosystem. canadian. “It’s a consecration,” finally rejoiced the Quebec Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, for whom the entire health network will benefit from this new plant.
long talks
This announcement comes after several months of discussions between the Federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne and the CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel. It represents a significant step in the Trudeau government’s efforts to rebuild the country’s biomanufacturing and life sciences sector. The plant will make it possible to consolidate the ecosystem of the pharmaceutical industry in the Montreal region, in order to prepare – for example – for other “possible pandemics”.
In a press release, the Legault government also specifies that Moderna will manufacture “not only vaccines against COVID-19”, but also “a range of messenger RNA vaccines” against “different respiratory viruses”, including influenza, which knows a rise in Quebec at the present time.
Moderna is one of two major makers of messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines in the world – the other being Pfizer/BioNTech. The vaccines produced by these two companies have been used by many countries to vaccinate their populations, including Canada and the United States.
In Canada, the provinces also used the vaccine manufactured by the Swedish-British pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca, at the start of the vaccination campaign. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted Canada’s vulnerability in several ways, including the lack of local production of effective coronavirus vaccines and the lack of production of personal protective equipment by Canadian companies, among other things. .
With Tommy Chouinard and Joel-Denis Bellavance, The Press