BioNTech raises vaccine production goal to 2.5B doses

By Bahattin Gonultas

BERLIN (AA) - BioNTech said on Tuesday that its coronavirus vaccine production target will be 2.5 billion doses for 2021, up from 2.3 billion.

Meetings are being held with vaccine producers and suppliers to expand the supply chain to raise manufacturing capacity, the company said in a statement.

"The deal of 1.4 billion vaccines' distribution for 2021 has been made so far and 200 million of them were already delivered," it said.

BioNTech and its US-based partner, Pfizer, are expected to see revenues of €9.8 billion ($11.5 billion) in 2021.

The firm also said net profit in the last quarter of 2020 was €366.9 million with the increase of COVID-19 vaccine sales.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was developed by Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin, a couple who are children of Turkish immigrants in Germany.

*Writing by Yunus Girgin from Ankara