BioNTech closes three factories in Germany due to impact of vaccine demand, affecting about 1,800 employees

BioNTech, a major German biotechnology company that earned billions of euros from its mRNA vaccine during the COVID-19 epidemic, accelerated its restructuring after vaccine demand subsided. The company has been searching for a buyer for several months without success. Today it announced the closure of three factories in Germany, affecting a quarter of its global employees, or about 1,800 employees.

Handelsblatt reported that BioNTech will gradually close three factories in Idar-Oberstein, Marburg and Tübingen in southwestern Germany. Tübingen is expected to close at the end of 2027, while Marburg and Idar-Oberstein will end operations at the beginning and end of 2028.

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BioNTech stated that the company has been actively looking for a buyer for several months and has also negotiated with a number of domestic and foreign companies and investors. Affected by the current poor market and investment environment, it was ultimately unable to reach a deal. The company has negotiated with employee representatives for additional severance compensation, hoping to reduce the impact of the shutdown on employees.

BioNTech cooperated with the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer to develop an mRNA vaccine during the epidemic, becoming one of the first pharmaceutical companies in the world to launch a vaccine. The hot sales of vaccines have allowed this originally small German biotech company to rise rapidly and earn billions of euros during the epidemic.

As the epidemic has slowed down, demand for vaccines has continued to decline in recent years, and BioNTech has not yet had another new product approved for marketing. BioNTech announced a reorganization plan in March this year, which will eliminate up to 1,860 positions. It will reduce production bases and shift resources to cancer drug research and development on the grounds of low capacity utilization, overcapacity and cost reduction.

The Marburg plant, which will be closed in early 2028, is an important base for BioNTech to expand its vaccine production capacity during the epidemic. The report pointed out that BioNTech acquired the factory from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis and invested a large amount of money in its reconstruction to produce mRNA vaccines and related raw materials. The closure of the factory reflects the rapid cooling of the vaccine market after the epidemic.

The Tübingen factory comes from BioNTech’s former competitor CureVac. The two companies competed for the development of mRNA vaccines during the epidemic. BioNTech only announced the acquisition of CureVac last year. The news of the closure of the factory caused dissatisfaction among CureVac founder Ingmar Hoerr.

Hall told the Business Daily that during the acquisition, he originally expected the two companies to integrate and leverage each other's strengths, but unexpectedly the plan was overturned immediately after the acquisition. He believes that the original contract did not guarantee the continued operation of the CureVac factory within a certain period of time, which was a major mistake made by the board of directors and supervisors and himself as a shareholder.

BioNTech currently has about 7,200 employees worldwide. Due to the decline in vaccine revenue, BioNTech is investing heavily in developing cancer treatments, including using mRNA technology to activate the human immune system to attack cancer cells, and new therapies that allow anti-cancer drugs to more accurately act on cancer cells.

Large R&D expenditures have also brought financial pressure. According to reports, BioNTech suffered a net loss of 1.35 billion euros (approximately NT$48.8 billion) in the first half of this year, higher than the loss of approximately 800 million euros in the same period last year.