Continue to Site

BioNTech wins EMA nod for COVID-19 vaccine site in Germany

By Brian Buntz | March 26, 2021

Pfizer BioNTech BioNTech has won approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine Marburg, Germany–based facility.

BioNTech will produce mRNA at the site, an instrumental component of the Comirnaty (BNT162b2) vaccine it jointly developed with Pfizer.

The manufacturing for the vaccine process requires approximately 50,000 steps, which spans mRNA synthesis and manufacture of the bulk drug substance, according to BioNTech.

With an annual production capacity of up to one billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine annually, BioNTech expects the site to be one of the biggest mRNA vaccine manufacturing sites in Europe and the world. The site can produce a single batch of mRNA for approximately eight billion vaccine doses.

At present, 400 employees work at the site, which operates continuously.

BioNTech anticipates that it can produce up to 250 million doses of the vaccine in the plant in the first half of the year.

About The Author

Brian Buntz

The pharma and biotech editor of WTWH Media, Brian is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of experience covering an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, drug discovery and development and medical devices. Before coming to WTWH, he served as content director focused on connected devices at Informa. In addition, Brian covered the medical device sector for 10 years at UBM. At Qmed, he overhauled the brand’s news coverage and helped to grow the site’s traffic volume dramatically. He had previously held managing editor roles on two of the company’s medical device technology publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email at bbuntz@wtwhmedia.com.