Montreal plant to produce Novavax vaccine

OTTAWA • A leading COVID-19 vaccine will be produced in Canada this summer under a deal to be announced Tuesday, the National Post has learned.

The government is expected to announce that Novavax will produce its COVID-19 vaccine at a still-under-construction facility in Montreal.

A government source, speaking on background, revealed the company has signed a memorandum of understanding to use the National Research Council’s facility and could begin producing vaccines in late July.

If the government’s current projections to have all Canadians vaccinated by September hold, the vaccines made in Montreal will come at the end of the domestic vaccine rollout.

Novavax has been working on its vaccine since the beginning of the pandemic. The U.S. pharmaceutical company, based in Maryland, already has an order to supply Canada with 52 million doses of its vaccine and is now seeking regulatory approval from health Canada.

The vaccine requires two doses, but can be stored in normal fridges and isn’t as delicate as other shots on the market.

Assuming the company receives approval for its vaccine, the first doses delivered to Canada will be made outside the country, but will then shift to the Montreal facility.

Novavax released information last week on its vaccine, showing the injection was 89.3 per cent effective in a large clinical trial in the united Kingdom. The study enrolled more than 15,000 people with half getting the vaccine and the others receiving a placebo.

The results showed 62 cases of COVID-19 during the study, with 56 of them occurring in the placebo group. The results also indicate the company’s vaccine is effective against the u.k. variant. The variant is a major concern for health officials because it appears to be more transmissible and more deadly. The company also tested its vaccine in South Africa, where another troubling variant is circulating, and found it was 60 per cent effective there.

Last summer, the Liberals announced $126 million toward construction of a biologics Manufacturing Centre at the National research Council’s royalmount road facility in Montreal. When completed in July the facility will be able to produce millions of doses of vaccine per month and will hold a Good Manufacturing Practices approval, a technical designation meaning the facility can reliably produce vaccines.

NRC spokesperson Karyne Vienneau said the facility is on track to be completed in July.

“Generally, a new Good Manufacturing Practices facility can take two years or more to complete,” she said. “Given the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government is supporting the National research Council to greatly condense these timelines.”

She said the late July timeline includes bringing in the right equipment and getting the facility certified.

A smaller vaccine production centre at the NRC in Montreal is behind schedule according to the NRC. That facility was supposed to open in November and could have produced upwards of 250,000 doses per month.

The NRC had to drastically change plans on that facility after discovering it could not be placed inside an existing building as originally planned, forcing a redesign, which Vienneau said is still underway.

“The NRC is completing the final design and engineering work for the permanent clinical trial production facility to support vaccines and biologics research and development. These plans are not yet finalized.”

In recent weeks, the government has seen a significant decline as both Pfizer and Moderna, currently the only approved vaccines, have reduced shipments to Canada.

Canada received no Pfizer shipments last week and will receive just a handful in the next two weeks, before shipments are scheduled to ramp back up as the company completes factory upgrades. Moderna also cut its shipment to Canada this week, citing production issues.

Pfizer’s vaccine is manufactured in belgium and the european union has imposed controls on the company’s shipments after eu countries were also hit by Pfizer’s reduction.

Novavax’s submission to Health Canada adds to Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson who both have vaccine candidates going through the process.

Medicago is the only Canadian company to sign a major vaccine manufacturing deal with the government, but the majority of its vaccine will actually be produced in the united States as it scales up a Canadian facility. The company is also just entering the final phase of clinical trials.

The NRC Is Completing The final Design AND ENGINEERING.