On Oct. 26, 2021, BioNTech announce that the Company planned to initiate the construction of the first state-of-the-art manufacturing site for mRNA-based vaccines in the African Union in mid-2022. This was the next step in BioNTech’s efforts to implement sustainable end-to-end vaccine supply solutions on the African continent.

The parties agree to jointly establish end-to-end manufacturing capacities for mRNA-based vaccines in Africa starting immediately. BioNTech has finalized the construction plans and ordered the assets, which will be delivered by mid-2022. The new manufacturing facility could become the first node in a decentralized and robust African end-to-end manufacturing network enabling an annual manufacturing capacity of several hundreds of million mRNA vaccine doses.

BioNTech plans to develop and implement a scalable construction network based on the expertise and learnings from the ramp-up of the Company’s production facility in Marburg. To enable an expedient set-up of production capacities according to GMP standards, BioNTech will start with the construction and validation of a first production line enabling the manufacturing of drug product for about 50 million of e.g. COVID-19 vaccine doses per year, once fully operational. The capacity will be increased sequentially by adding further manufacturing lines and sites to the manufacturing network on the continent, supporting the production of several hundreds of millions of mRNA vaccine doses.

BioNTech will initially staff, own and operate the facility to support the safe and rapid initiation of the production of mRNA-based vaccine doses. BioNTech plans to transfer manufacturing capacities and the know-how to local partners. Therefore, BioNTech, the Rwanda Development Board and Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal agreed to swiftly build-up the required human resources capacity and systems so that the partners can take over ownership and operational duties.

In parallel, the Republic of Rwanda and the Institut Pasteur de Dakar have committed themselves to scale-up fill and finish capacities to complete the local end-to-end manufacturing process. In addition, BioNTech is in discussions about an expansion of the current partnership with Cape Town-based vaccine manufacturer Biovac, which is part of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine manufaturing network.