COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer BioNTech BNTX,
has started production on a new site in Germany, in a step that will help alleviate the shortage of stock of the shot it has developed with Pfizer PFE,
The factory will produce mRNA, the active ingredient in the shot, which is then purified and concentrated, before being delivered to partner sites to be ready. “The first vaccines to be manufactured at the Marburg site are expected to be delivered in early April,” BioNTech said in a statement on Wednesday. The group will need the approval of the European Medicines Agency. BioNTech acquired the website of the Swiss medicine company Novartis NVS,
NOVN,
last year as part of a goal to increase production of his shot this year to 2 billion. The factory has the capacity to produce up to 750 million doses per year per vaccine. The European Union is under fire due to a slow vaccination, exacerbated by delivery delays of the drug companies AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
and Pfizer at European plants. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged on Wednesday that the EU was late in authorizing the use of vaccines. “We are still not where we want to be,” von der Leyen said at a plenary session of the European Parliament.
