Even as mRNA specialist BioNTech plants its manufacturing flag on continents around the globe, the company is still advancing production capabilities at home.
Thursday, BioNTech said it finished construction at its first proprietary plasmid DNA manufacturing facility in Marburg, Germany. Plasmids are a key building block for mRNA- and cell-based drugs, BioNTech notes, and the company says the site will provide it with "autonomy and flexibility" in advancing its pipeline.
BioNTech expects to spend around 40 million euros on the facility, which will be able to make batches both at clinical and commercial scales, according to a press release. The clinical-scale portion of the project has been operational since August 2022, and the company expects the commercial phase to come online by the end of this year.
The project falls under the company's long-term manufacturing expansion plan for Marburg. The site is around 75 miles from the company's home base in Mainz, Germany. BioNTech acquired the Marburg plant from Novartis in 2020 amid its COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing push. Since then, the company has more than doubled its employee base at the site to around 700 workers.
While BioNTech has been riding high from the success of its Pfizer-partnered vaccine, Comirnaty, the company has big plans beyond COVID-19. In May 2021, co-founder and CEO Uğur Şahin, M.D., said he wanted to transform the company into a "global immunotherapy powerhouse." Within its pipeline, BioNTech is testing candidates against multiple cancers and viruses. In all, the company has 22 R&D programs in various stages of development.
BioNTech plans to "independently" handle most of its DNA plasmid needs. But the company acknowledges "temporary peaks in demand" could require it to use external suppliers.
Aside from advancing the pipeline, the company has focused on geographic expansion. For example, BioNTech is setting up manufacturing operations in Africa and Australia, among other locations.