New Moderna plant in Laval will do more than produce COVID-19 vaccines, Champagne says

A new Moderna plant in Laval will be able to supply COVID-19 vaccines for the fall 2025 vaccination campaign, the company said Friday during an official visit to mark the end of construction work at the production facility.

The $250-million Laval plant should produce about 100 million doses of MRNA vaccines annually, “able to provide vaccines to all Canadians,” said Moderna chief operating and quality officer Jerh Collins.

In April 2022, the federal government reached 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. The factory will be able to do much more than produce vaccines against COVID -19, federal Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-philippe Champagne said at a news conference.

“Moderna is not just about COVID-19. This is a range of vaccines that we will be able to produce at home,” Champagne said. “There are even vaccines potentially for cancer.”

Quebec Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon emphasized the project makes it possible to reduce Canada's dependence on foreign vaccine production.

He said Moderna's plant will serve as a calling card to attract other projects in the pharmaceutical sector to Quebec.

“There are international pharmaceutical companies that are looking at what is happening, the talent that there is at Mcgill, that there is at Université de Montréal, among others,” Fitzgibbon said.

“I think it will create quite significant momentum for life sciences.”