Vaccine manufacturer COVID-19 BioNTech BNTX,
has started production at a new location in Germany, in a move that will help alleviate the supply shortage of the feature it has developed with Pfizer PFE,
The factory will produce mRNA, the active ingredient in the shot, which will then be purified and concentrated, before being delivered to associated sites for finishing. “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 acquired the site from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis NVS,
NOVN,
last year as part of a goal to increase production of its shot 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 attacked by a slow deployment of vaccination, exacerbated by delays in the delivery of pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
and Pfizer in European plants. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen admitted 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 said in a plenary session of the EU Parliament.