Vaccine manufacturer: Moderna preferred Quebec over six other provinces

To get the first Moderna vaccine plant in Canada, Quebec had to compete with six other provinces. As announced last August, construction of the plant in Laval, near Montreal, will be completed by 2024.

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“When we were discussing, there were seven provinces that were really interested in having Moderna,” Patricia Gauthier, CEO of Moderna Canada, said yesterday on the sidelines of a Montreal Chamber of Commerce conference.

The leader says she was “happily surprised” by the Canadian provinces’ enthusiasm, once the agreement was signed in principle in the summer of 2021 with Federal Minister François-Philippe Champagne. At least seven counties “sent out submission emails.”

A strong ecosystem in Quebec

A “robust” ecosystem dedicated to life sciences has allowed Quebec to perform well, according to M^I Gautier. Montreal has expertise in this area with the help of a sector group and university research programs.

As for the $25 million envelope, for the majority of the subsidies from the Quebec government, it wasn’t “the only factor necessarily the one that tipped the scales one way or another,” says the executive.

Prepare for future epidemics

The future vaccine factory will serve the Canadian population as a priority in the event of the next pandemic, assures M^I Gautier. “We know that with climate change, it’s not about whether there will be others [pandémies]But since when. “We want to be prepared,” she adds.

To do this, Moderna is currently developing prototypes of the 15 viruses that the World Health Organization has identified as a potential source for a future pandemic.