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(Adds prime minister's comment, details)
OTTAWA, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Canada will invest up to C$214
million ($162.8 million) to help develop a domestically made
COVID-19 vaccine as a second surge of infections across the
country worsens, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.
Canada has secured up to 76 million doses of Quebec
City-based Medicago's potential virus-like particle vaccine,
Trudeau said. It is the first domestically developed vaccine
candidate the government has reserved.
The announcement came a day after the country recorded 2,788
new cases in a 24-hour period.
"Yesterday Canada had the highest ever number of new cases
of COVID-19. We have to get these numbers down - this is serious
and everybody must do their part," Trudeau said in a news
conference.
Last month Canada agreed to buy up to 20 million doses of
the vaccine candidate produced by AstraZeneca and Oxford
University. That is one of several deals Ottawa has signed to
secure around 300 million potential shots.
Canada has agreements with Pfizer, Sanofi,
GlaxoSmithKline, Moderna, Novavax and
Johnson & Johnson for their vaccine candidates.
On Friday, the government also said it would invest up to
C$18.2 million in Vancouver-based biotechnology company
Precision NanoSystems Inc (PNI) to support a project for
pre-clinical and clinical trials for a vaccine.
($1 = 1.3142 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren
Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
