BioNTech lifts vaccine target to 2 bln doses

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Pfizer’s German partner now aims to churn out around 2 billion doses this year.

That’s up from an earlier target of 1.3 billion.

The new goal comes as extra production lines come on stream.

BioNTech has also found ways to extract more doses from each vial of the product.

In a presentation Monday (January 11), the firm said it would use so-called ‘low dead space syringes’.

They allow it to extract six doses from each standard vial, instead of the usual five.

A new production site in Marburg, Germany, has also been acquired from Novartis.

It will become operational by the end of February, and have an annual capacity of 750 million doses.

Contractors who supply ingredients have also ramped up capacity.

BioNTech said it had shipped 32.9 million doses as of Sunday (January 10).

A spokeswoman said the firm had actually made 50 million by the end of last year.

But shipments were held back to avoid excess storage time.