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Biontech is working hard with its partner Pfizer to increase production of its novel coronavirus vaccine, the German company’s founders said. They warned there could be delays in deliveries until new batches of the vaccine are produced, Reuters reported.
Delivery of the vaccine to Biontech and Pfizer in the EU is slower due to its subsequent approval by the union’s health regulator and the small volume of the contract presented by Brussels.
The delays have caused alarm in Germany, where several provinces have been forced to temporarily close their vaccination centers just days after the start of mass vaccination on December 27.
“Things are not looking good at the moment. There is a gap due to the lack of other approved vaccines and we have to fill it with our vaccine,” Biontech director Ugur Shahin said in an interview with SPIEGEL.
The European Medicines Agency is expected to approve Moderna’s vaccine on January 6. German Health Minister Jens Spahn also invited her to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine, which Britain approved this week.
Both Shahin and his wife, Ozlem Tureji, Biontech’s co-founder and chief medical officer, criticized the EU’s decision to order several different vaccines, hoping they would be approved soon.
The United States ordered 600 million doses of the vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer in July, and the EU ordered half in November.
“At some point, it became clear that it would not be possible to deliver the vaccine so quickly. It was too late to place additional orders,” Turedji said in the same interview.
Biontech plans to build a new production line in the German city of Marburg that could provide 250 million doses of the vaccine in the first half of the year, Sahin said.
Shahin also said that Biontech could make its vaccine easier to store. Currently, this vaccine requires storage at a temperature of minus 70 degrees. A next-generation vaccine may be ready for the summer, which can be stored at higher temperatures.
