OTTAWA — Two Canadian companies frustrated in attempts to develop COVID-19 vaccines have received multimillion-dollar awards from the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund, The Logic has learned.

Between them, Aramis Biotechnologies of Quebec City and Providence Therapeutics of Calgary have been pledged $89.9 million, in agreements dated in May.

Aramis, which inherited the intellectual property from Medicago’s efforts to make vaccine components in nicotiana plants, got $40 million from the fund for “plant-based influenza vaccine production in Canada.”

Providence, meanwhile, was awarded $49.9 million for “enhancing Canadian innovation in biomanufacturing and R&D in mRNA medicines.”

Both are listed in public filings, but with scant details about what exactly the money is for. The Innovation Department, which runs the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), did not respond by deadline to questions about the funding. A spokesperson for Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne referred questions to the department’s permanent officials, who didn’t answer.

Aramis did not reply to The Logic’s inquiries about its award and Providence said it is gagged.

“We are not at liberty to provide any statements without prior approval from the minister,” Providence’s CEO Brad Sorenson told The Logic in an email, though he added that Providence hasn’t yet received any of the money.

In contrast, the government on Wednesday announced a $22.4-million SIF contribution to biotech firm Eurofins CDMO Alphora of Mississauga, Ont. Besides the announcement, its database entry says that money will help build a research and production facility for culturing mammal cells to “manufacture and produce antibody-based therapeutics and other protein biologics.”

Medicago’s COVID-19 shot, Covifenz, had enough potential that the federal government pre-purchased tens of millions of doses in the initial scramble for vaccines.

It turned out to have four problems. Covifenz protected recipients from COVID-19 but not as well as its mRNA competitors did, and it reached approval later than they did. Medicago had production failures that stopped it from making its vaccine in quantity. And until majority owner Mitsubishi bought out Philip Morris’s minority stake, the tobacco company’s involvement ran afoul of World Health Organization policies against working with that industry. That smothered international interest.

Despite multiple rounds of federal support, including a $200-million SIF contribution, Medicago didn’t make it. The new $40-million contribution is for the same amount Mitsubishi promised to return to the federal treasury when the Japanese conglomerate closed Medicago’s doors last year.

But the underlying idea of making the critical components for vaccines in those nicotiana plants—which are unusually susceptible to many of the same viruses that infect humans—had seen more than 20 years of research and development, starting at Université Laval in Quebec City.

Medicago had had a slew of potential vaccines on the go before COVID-19 came along and the company made its disastrous attempt to pivot. Aramis, owned and led by former Medicago employees, took over the company’s intellectual property in an agreement brokered by the federal government; Aramis says it’s focusing on an influenza shot.

Before the pandemic, Providence was working on the same mRNA technology that underlies the wildly successful COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. Sorenson complained at the time that Providence couldn’t get government backing to accelerate its work.

He’s still sore: “The vaccine Providence developed was a highly effective vaccine, and had the program received timely support [it] could have been impactful in blunting the pandemic and saving Canada a lot of money,” he told The Logic in his email.

Sorenson said in 2021 that the company was giving up on Canada and moving elsewhere. Providence still lists an office south of downtown Calgary as its headquarters, however. Sorenson didn’t respond to a question about that.

Although Providence’s paused COVID-19 vaccine remains the most advanced product in its pipeline—the only one to reach clinical trials in humans—the company is working on vaccines for influenza, shingles, malaria and salmonella, as well as treatments for several types of cancer.

It made a deal with Toronto’s University Health Network in 2023 to work together on mRNA-based treatments and another this spring with the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research to develop cancer drugs.

That’s where Providence is putting its efforts these days, Sorenson wrote: “Our focus is advancing our collaborations in cancer forward into the clinic and establishing high-value partnerships like the ones recently signed with UHN and OICR.”