Feds announce funding for new vaccine plant
OTTAWA – The federal government is handing over $200 million to a pharmaceutical company for a major expansion of a Mississauga, Ont., plant, allowing the firm to make MRNA vaccines in Canada.
The $199.16 million from the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund will go to Resilience Biotechnologies, a company formed just last year that bought the Mississauga facility from another firm last fall. The money will cover roughly half of the cost of the expanded facility, which when complete will be able to make between 112 million and 640 million doses of vaccine a year. The expansion will include fill and finish capabilities, the last step in vaccine manufacturing, which has been a bottleneck for many manufacturers.
Including the people Resilience currently employs, the project is expected to help fund 500 permanent jobs.
The company is required to repay about three quarters of the funding, but the government could not provide details of that repayment schedule before press time.
Industry Minister François-philippe Champagne said his department wants to ensure Canada has a robust industry for future possible pandemics and this is one of many investments the government is prepared to make.
Rahul Singhvi, the company’s CEO, said the company was formed with the idea of being ready for whatever the world might face from future diseases or pandemics.
“We don’t know what the future enemies will be, but by having innovation, by having technologies that can be implemented at the last moment, we will be able to address it no matter what the future brings.”
Singhvi expects the plant to be open by 2024 and said the work done to create groundbreaking vaccines is important, but it is equally important to have the technology to make them on a global scale.
Conservative Health critic Michelle Rempel Garner said the announcement is coming much too late to help in this pandemic.
“Today’s announcement will not help Canadians get a COVID-19 vaccine faster. It’s inexcusable that Canada is well over a year into the pandemic and Justin Trudeau is finally investing in the manufacturing of vaccines in Canada.”