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Pharmaceutical company BioNTech, one of the producers of a corona vaccine, also wants to start manufacturing the vaccines in Singapore. This requires a production facility that is expected to be operational in 2023.
Hundreds of millions of doses must be produced every year, but also capacity to be able to respond quickly to possible virus outbreaks in the region, business newspaper The Wall Street Journal reports.
The production facility is being built with a subsidy from the Singapore government. The pharmaceutical company cites Singapore’s growing biotech industry as one reason for setting up a production line there. BioNTech has not yet stated how much money the project will cost or how much subsidy it will receive. In addition to corona vaccines, other medicines must also be produced, such as cancer medication and other medicines for viral infectious diseases.
BioNTech, which develops cancer drugs in Germany, was one of the first manufacturers of a vaccine for the coronavirus for the European Union and the United States. For this production, BioNTech works together with pharmaceutical company Pfizer. In other markets, such as Germany, Turkey and China, the company operates alone.
Setting up a production line for so-called mRNA vaccines is complicated and takes a lot of time. Both BioNTech and Pfizer have put forward manufacturing complexity as an argument against releasing the patents on the vaccine.
That discussion has been going on since India, and South Africa asked for it so that they too can start producing the vaccines. Both countries are struggling with many corona infections and are working to contain them. The United States last week announced that it supports the release of patents.
