Vaccine manufacturer COVID-19 BioNTech BNTX,
began production at a new site in Germany, in a move that will help alleviate the lack of supply of photography it developed with Pfizer PFE,
The plant will produce the mRNA, the active ingredient in the picture, which will then be purified and concentrated before being delivered to partner sites for completion. “The first vaccines produced at the Marburg site are expected to be delivered in early April,” BioNTech said in a statement on Wednesday. The batch will need the approval of the European Medicines Agency. BioNTech has acquired the site from the Swiss drug company Novartis NVS,
WE,
last year as part of the goal to increase photo production to 2 billion this year. The factory has the capacity to produce up to 750 million doses of vaccine per year. The European Union has been on fire for a slow launch of vaccination, exacerbated by delivery delays from pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
and Pfizer at European factories. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged on Wednesday that the EU was late in authorizing the use of vaccines. “We are not yet where we want to be,” von der Leyen told a plenary session of the EU parliament.