Germany: BioNTech shutting down COVID vaccine production

The Mainz-based company BioNTech that shot to global notoriety amid the COVID-19 pandemic for its work on one of the first mRNA coronavirus vaccines has announced drastic restructuring plans. 

The company is winding down its COVID vaccine production entirely, leaving the production to US partner Pfizer going forward.

"In the course of this year we will produce the last doses here in Germany," a company spokeswoman told the Reuters news agency. 

What is closing down and how many jobs could be at risk? 

Amid the restructuring, the company is closing production centers in Idar-Oberstein, in Marburg, in Singapore in Asia, and another German facility in Tübingen belonging to the CureVac rival company that BioNTech fully took over as of late 2025 after a lengthy acquisition process.

The company said that the closures should be completed by the end of 2027, and that it would look into possibilities to sell the affected facilities. 

BioNTech said last year that it would be cutting between 950 and 1,350 full time jobs over the subsequent two years — it's not clear how many it had already cut. The company says that up to 1,860 jobs could be affected in total amid the expanded restructuring. 

Why is BioNTech moving away from COVID treatment and towards cancer research, currently at great cost?

BioNTech said that it was reacting to a marked decline in demand for COVID vaccines. For a brief period at the height of the pandemic, these were recommended to almost anybody for regular renewal but they now tend to be administered mainly to the elderly and other high-risk people.

In Germany, BioNTech plans to keep its main base in Mainz, as well as office facilities only in Berlin and Munich. The company has retooled to return its focus primarily to research, on treating cancer and other illnesses.

The company logged falling revenues of €118.1 million (roughly $138 million) in the first quarter of this year, compared to €182.8 in the same period in 2025.

Meanwhile, its net losses for the year rose to €531.9 million. These costs were attributed to investments in research and developmental costs — not least for an antibody called Pumitamig which the company hopes can have multi-purpose usage in cancer treatment and which is currently in global phase 2 trials. 

BioNTech's founders Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci announced in March that they were stepping down to start a new venture. 

Edited by: Alex Berry