Federal Government Signs Agreements on Two Potential COVID-19 Vaccines

The federal government has agreements in principle with Novavax and Johnson & Johnson on a potential vaccine for COVID-19. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement earlier today.

“As we continue to work together to limit the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health of Canadians, as well as its social, and economic effects, we must also maximize our chances of defeating the virus. To do this, we need to invest in the development o several promising vaccines and ensure that we can manufacture and distribute the vaccine to as many Canadians as quickly as possible,” Trudeau said. Novavax will provide about to 76 million doses of its candidate NVX-CoV2373. Johnson & Johnson will supply 38 million doses of its vaccine candidate AD26.COV2.S.

The federal government previously to agreements with Pfizer to provide a minimum of 20 million doses of an mRNA-based vaccine candidate, BNT-162. And Moderna to supply up to 56 million doses of its vaccine candidate mRNA-1273. The vaccines are in various stages of testing, and none are approved yet by Health Canada.