(Laval) The Moderna plant in Laval will be able to supply COVID-19 vaccines for the fall 2025 vaccination campaign.
“These messenger RNA vaccine production facilities should be able to provide vaccines to all Canadians during the fall of 2025,” Jerh Collins, Moderna’s chief operating and quality officer, said Friday. , during an official visit to mark the completion of construction work on the factory.
The Laval plant will be able to produce approximately 100 million doses of RNA vaccines annually, if needed. Its regular production will be less. Questioned last November, the new general director of Moderna Canada, Stefan Raos, did not want to quantify the targeted production.
“Last year, in the fall, approximately 7 million doses were administered against COVID-19 in Canada,” he then indicated. About 90% were Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines. This year it will be a little more. That gives you an idea. »
In April 2022, the federal government entered into an agreement with Moderna to set up a factory in Quebec. The choice of Laval was revealed in August 2022 and work was launched in November 2022.
This is a 250 million project.
The factory will be able to do much more than produce vaccines against COVID-19, underlined the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, at a press conference.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne
“Moderna is not just COVID-19. This is a range of vaccines that we will be able to produce at home. […] There are even vaccines potentially for cancer. »
“At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada had very limited capacity to produce mRNA vaccines,” he also recalled in a press release.
The Minister of the Economy of Quebec, Pierre Fitzgibbon, emphasizes that the project makes it possible to reduce Canada’s dependence on vaccine production.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Quebec Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon
Mr. Fitzgibbon believes that Moderna’s new project will serve as a calling card to attract other projects in the pharmaceutical sector to Quebec.
“There are international pharmaceutical companies looking at what is happening, the talent there is at McGill, that there is at the University of Montreal, among others. […] I think it will create quite significant momentum for the life sciences. »