Ottawa | The federal government required vaccine manufacturers to come and produce their vials in Canada to avoid the import problems we are currently facing, but they have refused all but Novavax.

“They all concluded that bioprocessing capabilities were too limited to warrant the capital investment and expertise to start production in Canada,” Supply Minister Anita Anand said Thursday in a parliamentary committee.

Meanwhile, Moderna reduced its shipments this week and “the week of February 22 will also be affected,” said Maj. Gen. Fortin, who manages the vial distribution.

He admitted Thursday that there was “no way to be sure” that Canada would receive doses from Pfizer and Modern in the coming weeks.

Is that the supply contracts do not provide for weekly or even monthly deliveries, but a total per quarter, Minister Anand revealed.

So nothing obligates Moderna and Pfizer to arrange deliveries like they did last month.

Like Pfizer and Moderna, AstraZeneca, which may have the next vaccine licensed in the country, will refuse to produce it here because Canada will not be able to support the “required volume of production,” the minister said. Anand.

In India, for example, the company has teamed up with the Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine producer, to produce 1 billion doses.

Half a dozen factories

Canada has half a dozen vaccine factories that together can produce nearly 1 billion doses per year.

But they don’t all have the same technologies and production platforms, because “not all vaccines are alike,” said Minister of Innovation, François-Philippe Champaign.

Novavax CEO Stanley Erk told Bloomberg, the only company to accept Minister Anand’s offer, had only had production capacity a year earlier. So it has developed partnerships with seven different countries so that they can produce their own dosages.

For Erk, it’s about ensuring that his vaccine is consistently produced across the country, so that Canadians can be bitten every year if needed, as is the case with the flu.