Billions in sales: Biontech sees itself on course - Omikron vaccine already in October

Created: 2022-08-09 05:43

The pharmaceutical company Biontech generated sales of almost ten billion euros in the first half of the year.

The first doses of the Omikron vaccine could also be delivered as early as October.

Mainz – The pharmaceutical company Biontech sees itself as continuing on the road to success: the Mainz-based company has promised to quickly adapt its corona vaccine to new variants and has confirmed the expectation of annual sales of at least 13 billion euros.

Biontech co-founder Sahin: "We have made significant progress"

"We made significant progress in the second quarter on our way to becoming a global powerhouse in immunotherapy," said CEO and co-founder Ugur Sahin on Monday in Mainz when presenting the quarterly figures for the months of April to June.

A clinical study on a vaccine adapted to the omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 should start in August, said Sahin.

If the responsible authorities approve this, the first doses could be delivered from October.

The success story of the Mainz-based pharmaceutical company Biontech continues.

© Hannes P. Albert/dpa

Corona vaccines: keeping up with the pace of mutation

Biontech had previously developed a vaccine adapted to the BA.1 variant.

The EU medicines agency EMA started the test procedure for this vaccine from the manufacturers Biontech and Pfizer in mid-June.

The EMA is also testing an adapted vaccine from the US manufacturer Moderna, which, like the vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer, is based on mRNA technology.

So far, no vaccine has been approved in the EU that also targets variants of the coronavirus.

Biontech will keep up with the mutation rate of Sars-CoV-2, said board member and co-founder Özlem Türeci.

As the goal of further development, she named a corona vaccine "with a broader and longer-lasting immune response".

With the sale of its corona vaccine, Biontech generated 9.57 billion euros in the first half of the year.

That was 30.1 percent more than in the first half of 2021. Net profit increased by 37.2 percent to 5.37 billion euros.

"The half-year figures are fully in line with our expectations," said CFO Jens Holstein.

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Looking at the second quarter alone, however, there was a decline in both sales (down 39.8 percent to 3.20 billion) and profit (down 40.0 percent to 1.67 billion) compared to the same period last year.

The corona vaccine manufacturer attributed this to the fact that the dynamic development of the pandemic "resulted in a postponement of orders and thus to fluctuations in quarterly sales".

First Biontech manufacturing facility in Africa

For the full year 2022, Biontech expects sales of 13 to 17 billion euros.

In view of the variant-adapted vaccine candidates, increased demand is to be expected, especially in the fourth quarter.

According to their own statements, Biontech and its US partner Pfizer have exported more than 3.6 billion doses of its corona vaccine to 180 countries since December 2020, making it the market leader.

In the Rwandan capital of Kigali, Mainz's sister city, construction of the first Biontech production plant in Africa has begun.

The company named Senegal and South Africa as other possible locations on the continent.

In addition to the corona vaccines, Biontech is driving the development of cancer therapies based on mRNA technology.

The desired goals include a vaccine that is tailored to the specific profile of an individual cancer.

Türeci gave an overview of different cancer therapy projects and spoke of promising data from previous tests.