Trudeau said the government has signed a contract to procure 76 million doses from the Quebec City-biotech company Medicago.
Medicago is developing the vaccine in partnership with the British drug company GlaxoSmithKline. The two companies have said its pre-clinical results show the vaccine demonstrated a "high level of neutralizing antibodies following a single dose."
Canada already has signed six other contracts for tens of millions more vaccine doses with other pharmaceutical giants, such as AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer. All told, the federal government has secured 358 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine — an insurance policy if some of the vaccines in development prove to be ineffective in clinical trials.