“Countries like the United States, Germany and the U.K. do have domestic pharmaceutical facilities, which is why they’re obviously going to prioritize helping their citizens first,” the prime minister said in a morning press conference, noting that Canada has lost its own production capacity. (The Logic)

Talking point: Some multinational firms do still make drugs in Canada, per a 2014 sector report from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, but only Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline make vaccines here. The two are partnering on a COVID-19 inoculant candidate, but it’s not among the frontrunners, which come from Pfizer and AstraZeneca. Ottawa has ordered doses of many of the top prospects. On Tuesday, it announced a new deal with Eli Lilly for 26,000 copies of its antibody therapy, on which the drug giant partnered with Vancouver-based AbCellera; the federal government awarded the latter company $175.6 million to help with its planned expansion up the treatment chain, from antibody discovery to eventual drug-manufacturing capacity. Ottawa is also funding a $126-million National Research Council biomanufacturing facility. Pharmaceutical researchers say it should have paid for domestic capacity and supply chains sooner; Trudeau himself acknowledged Tuesday that Canada’s vaccine-making heyday was “decades ago.”