The abrupt cessation of the activities of the biopharmaceutical company Medicago and of the construction of its new vaccine manufacturing plant in Quebec City has since Thursday triggered a commotion both in Quebec City and in Ottawa where we have started, not without reason, in active mobilization mode to relaunch this prematurely dead project.
Remember three years ago, when the race began to find a vaccine to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which then seemed invincible. Quickly, Canada realized its total dependence on foreign vaccine developers and manufacturers.
For the simple and good reason that we no longer had research and production capacities in the country that could meet our protection needs against the virus. The only two Canadian production sites still active, the former Connaught laboratories in Toronto and GSK in Quebec, were not equipped to produce messenger RNA vaccines.
That is why, starting in 2021, Canada has embarked on an offensive to rebuild its medical sovereignty by reviving the biomanufacturing and vaccine production sectors.
Ottawa injected 125 million into the development of a new factory for the Novavax group in the facilities of the National Research Council of Canada in Montreal and granted, via its Strategic Innovation Fund, 176 million to Medicago for the development of its plant-based vaccine and the construction of its new plant in Quebec.
The Quebec company, a division of the Japanese multinational Mitsubishi, obtained Health Canada approval for its vaccine against COVID-19 in February 2022, but did not receive approval from the World Health Organization. health because Medicago counted the tobacco company Philip Morris among its shareholders.
We know what happened next, Mitsubishi bought the shares of Philip Morris in December in order to obtain the consent of the WHO, but it was too little, too late for the Japanese multinational, which decided to close Medicago and liquidate its assets, despite the $176 million from the federal government and the $75 million in loans granted by the Quebec government.
Both in Quebec and in Ottawa, we see that Mitsubishi is in breach of contract and we fully intend to recover the sums advanced to Medicago.
The path that the two levels of government seem to favor is to proceed with the purchase of Medicago’s assets and patents via the debt that the multinational contracted with them to relaunch the construction of the plant and manufacture vaccines against COVID-19. 19 or against influenza with a new strategic partner.
An industry under reconstruction
“A relaunch that makes sense, confirms François Arcand, entrepreneur in life sciences and co-founder of Medicago with Louis-Philippe Vézina, in 1999. We have built the foundations, and there, we are at 90% of the building, you have to finish it and take advantage of the intellectual property that Medicago has developed over the years. »
Today CEO of Pharma in silica, a Quebec biopharmaceutical company that develops less invasive oncological treatments, François Arcand is convinced that plant-based vaccines complete the immunological arsenal, just as there are several drugs to relieve ailments. of head.
Quebec and Canada must rebuild their medical sovereignty and their independence from the giants of the industry, and Medicago is part of the solution.
The life sciences sector has regained momentum since the dark years it experienced at the turn of 2010, when we watched helplessly as the research laboratories of the major pharmaceutical companies Merck Frosst, Pfizer , AstraZeneca and Boehringer.
“It was a hard blow, but fortunately, many high-level researchers from these big pharmaceuticals stayed in Quebec and joined the young companies in the biotechnology sector. »
“The life sciences industry has now acquired great maturity. There are several successful companies and they have access to financing,” said Geneviève Guertin, Vice-President Private Equity and Impact Investment – Life Sciences, at the Fonds de solidarité FTQ.
With its 37,000 jobs, concentrated in Montreal, Quebec and Sherbrooke, the life sciences sector has roughly the same economic weight as aeronautics. It brings together more than 700 companies, including more than 200 in the biopharmaceutical sector, both innovative and generic companies.
Medicago and its vaccine technology based on alfalfa plants initially and now tobacco must survive the withdrawal of its main shareholder Mitsubishi, which is still indebted for funding from the governments of Quebec and Ottawa.
As the Japanese company clearly indicated in its communications, it wishes to proceed with an orderly dissolution of its business affairs and activities; all that remains is to find the buyer who will bring a little sap to revive this Quebec sprout.