Strengthening Canada’s Bio-manufacturing and Life Sciences Sector

The sciences and bio-manufacturing sector is a priority that goes beyond responding to COVID-19. This is a growing sector that supports thousands of good, middle class jobs. Our government will continue to invest in our bio-manufacturing sector, which hadeclined for decades and left Canada without the capacity needed to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines at home. In the last year, we’ve made investments of more than $1 billion to advance the research and development of made in Canada vaccines and pharmaceuticals as well as to expand biomanufacturing capacity to make Canada more self-sufficient. We will continue making important investments to ramp up our bio-manufacturing capacity and enhance pandemic preparedness today and in the future. 

Budget 2021 proposes to: 

  • Provide a total of $2.2 billion over seven years towards growing a vibrant domestic life sciences sector. This support would provide foundational investments to help build Canada’s talent pipeline and research systems and support the growth of Canadian life sciences firms. 
  • Provide $500 million over four years, starting this year for the Canada Foundation for Innovation to support the bio-science capital and infrastructure needs of post-secondary institutions and research hospitals.  
  • Provide $250 million over four years, starting this year for the federal research granting councils to create a new tri-council biomedical research fund. 
  • Provide $92 million over four years, starting this year for adMare Bioinnovations to support company creation, scale-up, and training activities in the life sciences sector. 
  • Provide $59.2 million over three years, starting this year for the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization to support the development of its vaccine candidates and expand its facility in Saskatoon.  
  • Provide $45 million over three years, starting in 2022-23, to the Stem Cell Network to support stem cell and regenerative medicine research.  

Want to Stay in Touch?

Sign up and get email updates.

Join today!