/ Updated on

Ottawa invests $173M in the Medicago vaccine candidate

Ottawa will invest up to $173M to help Québec City’s Medicago develop a vaccine against COVID-19.

Original Article (French only) : Journal de Montréal 

“Canadian know-how is one of our best assets in the fight against this virus,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he announced this investment on Friday. 

The budget must be primarily used to set up a new facility in Québec City. It will be dedicated to “large-scale” vaccine and antibody production, specified the office of the Prime Minister in its news release.

Trudeau also indicated that an agreement was concluded with Medicago to reserve up to 76 million doses of its future vaccine.

In all, Ottawa announced Friday that it will increase this up to an additional $214M for the various Canadian initiatives to find a vaccine. From this sum, $18.2M will go to the development of a vaccine candidate by Vancouver’s Precision NanoSystems.

“We all hope that a vaccine will come soon,” added Trudeau, specifying that it shouldn’t be expected to come until next year.

Thursday night during an electoral debate, American President Donald Trump stated that a vaccine will be available in the coming weeks.