Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech said they were increasing vaccine production to 2 billion doses this year. But there is a catch: Expanding a factory in Belgium to help meet that goal means supplies will be in short supply in Europe, Canada and elsewhere.
BioNTech unveiled a factory update last week that will allow the company and Pfizer to deliver “significantly more doses in the second quarter”, but requires a short-term supply disruption. The disruption will affect Europe, Canada and some other countries, reports The Wall Street Journal. The companies say that deliveries will return to normal from next week.
The manufacturing upgrade will begin to boost production in mid-February, said BioNTech, leading to more deliveries in the first quarter and “significantly more in the second quarter”. The companies last week increased their production target from 2021 to 2 billion doses, compared to an earlier target of 1.3 billion doses.
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Resistance to the news came quickly. Six EU countries wrote in a letter to companies that the situation is “unacceptable”, reports Reuters.
“Not only does it impact planned vaccination schedules, but it also diminishes the credibility of the vaccination process,” says the letter, according to the news service.
Separately, the German government said that Pfizer was not fulfilling a “binding commitment” in its delivery schedule, reports the WSJ.
Still, the partners are “working tirelessly” on scaling up, BioNTech said in a statement, “not only expanding its own manufacturing capabilities, but also adding more suppliers, as well as contract manufacturers to increase total manufacturing capacity. “
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Across the Atlantic, deliveries continue to the United States and are halted in Canada, according to several reports. In Ontario, Health Minister Christine Elliott said that “Pfizer is renovating its factory in Belgium”, so Ontario “will see our supplies be reduced over a period of time”, as quoted by the Toronto Sun.
In response, some municipalities are changing vaccination plans, reports GlobalNews.ca. Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford said the effect of the disruption will be “enormous”, according to Sun. He asked the Canadian government to pressure Pfizer to increase deliveries.
On the same day that BioNTech revealed the update, biotechnology obtained approval to start manufacturing the vaccine at a German factory it bought from Novartis in September, reports Hessenschau (German). The Marburg site employs 300 people and is expected to produce up to 750 million doses a year, according to the German media.