BioNtech ready to ship first vaccine factory kit to Africa

Germany’s BioNTech said on Wednesday it has completed construction of its first vaccine factory made from shipping containers called ‘BioNtrainer’ being sent to Africa.

The six ISO-sized shipping containers for the first BioNTainer have finished construction in Europe, underwent quality checks by BioNTech experts and are being prepared for shipment to Kigali, Rwanda, where they are expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2023.

BioNtech said the facility at Kigali will house the first BioNtrainer, which is expected to become part of a wider supply network spanning several African nations that will have access to the mRNA-based vaccine.

In February, the company planned to develop a vaccine factory using shipping containers and send it to Africa as assembly kits to ease what the World Health Organization has described as huge disparities in global COVID-19 vaccine access.

About BioNTech

Biopharmaceutical New Technologies is a next generation immunotherapy company pioneering novel therapies for cancer and other serious diseases. The Company exploits a wide array of computational discovery and therapeutic drug platforms for the rapid development of novel biopharmaceuticals. Its broad portfolio of oncology product candidates includes individualized and off-the-shelf mRNA-based therapies, innovative chimeric antigen receptor T cells, bi-specific checkpoint immuno-modulators, targeted cancer antibodies and small molecules. Based on its deep expertise in mRNA vaccine development and in-house manufacturing capabilities, BioNTech and its collaborators are developing multiple mRNA vaccine candidates for a range of infectious diseases alongside its diverse oncology pipeline. BioNTech has established a broad set of relationships with multiple global pharmaceutical collaborators, including Genmab, Sanofi, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, Regeneron, Genevant, Fosun Pharma, and Pfizer.