Pfizer and BioNTech will jointly develop COVID-19 vaccine, initially in the US and Europe, and scale-up manufacturing capacity to support global supply

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Pfizer, BioNTech to jointly develop COVID-19 vaccine. (Credit: Pete Linforth from Pixabay.)

Biopharmaceutical New Technologies (BioNTech) and Pfizer have unveiled plans of their collaboration to advance candidates from BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine programme.

The collaboration, which was previously announced in March 2020, is aimed at advancing the development of multiple COVID-19 vaccine candidates into human clinical testing, based on BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine platforms to ensure rapid worldwide access to the vaccine, if approved.

Also, the collaboration will leverage Pfizer’s broad vaccine research and development expertise, along with its regulatory capabilities, and global manufacturing and distribution network.

Pfizer Worldwide Research, Development & Medical chief scientific officer and president Mikael Dolsten said: “Combatting the COVID-19 pandemic will require unprecedented collaboration across the innovation ecosystem, with companies coming together to unite capabilities like never before.

“I am proud of Pfizer’s collaboration with BioNTech and have every confidence in our ability to harness the power of science – together – to bring forth a potential vaccine that the world needs as quickly as possible.”

BioNTech and Pfizer will increase the manufacturing capacity to address the pandemic

Both Pfizer and BioNTech intend to jointly conduct clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine candidates initially in the US and Europe across multiple sites. The companies are planning to start the first clinical trials by the end of April 2020, considering the regulatory approval is obtained.

Besides, both companies would work together to ramp-up the manufacturing capacity to supply around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Once the regulatory approval is received, BioNTech and Pfizer will also jointly commercialise the vaccine worldwide, except in China, where BioNTech has partnered with Fosun Pharma.

BioNTech is an advanced immunotherapy company, providing novel therapies for cancer, infectious diseases and rare diseases. The company and its partners would supply of the vaccine from its GMP-certified mRNA manufacturing facilities in Europe, during the clinical development stage.

BioNTech co-founder and CEO Ugur Sahin said: “We have already started working with Pfizer on our COVID-19 vaccine and are pleased to announce these further details of our ongoing collaboration, which reflects both companies’ strong commitment to move quickly to bring a safe and efficacious vaccine to patients worldwide.”