BioNTech CFO Sees Scope For Additional Production Sites To Meet Demand For COVID-19 Shots: Reuters

Pfizer Inc's PFE COVID-19 vaccine partner BioNTech SE BNTX is not ruling out further capacity expansion and new production facilities to meet the demand for the vaccine, reports Reuters.
BNTX CFO Sierk Poetting said in an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper, "there is still room for improvement. But that will ultimately also depend on demand".
He said that if premises were available, BioNtech could build up additional production capacity in six months, adding that discussions were ongoing.
BioNTech and Pfizer plan to produce 2.5 billion COVID-19 doses this year, of which 1.4 billion were already sold. The companies aim to raise production to 3 billion shots in 2022.
A total of 300 million doses have been promised to the US.
BioNTech in February had launched production at its new site in the city of Marburg, which it purchased from Novartis last year, raising its annual capacity by around 1 billion doses.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine rollout was behind schedule at the beginning of this year, but then companies like Sanofi SA SNY and Novartis AG NVS stepped up to help with production.
This month, European Commission struck a third contract with the companies for 1.8 billion more doses between 2021 and 2023.
Price Action: BNTX shares are up 0.64% at $157.17, and PFE shares are up 1.26% at $39.52 in market trading hours on the last check Wednesday.

BioN­Tech CFO Sees Scope For Additional Pro­duc­tion Sites To Meet De­mand For COVID-19 Shots: Reuters