The European Union’s European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to invest €100m in debt financing into German-based BioNTech to support its Covid-19 vaccine development programme.
The programme, which BioNTech is running in collaboration with Pfizer, involves four vaccine candidates. It is currently in clinical trials in both Germany and the US.
EIB’s vice-president Ambroise Fayolle commented: “The only way to end the dramatic situation the world has been facing since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic is to come up with a safe and effective vaccine.
BioNTech chief operating offer and chief financial officer Sierk Poetting added: “The investments we have made to develop our vaccine platform over the past 12 years have been instrumental in enabling us to develop our COVID-19 vaccine programme rapidly in response to the global health crisis.
“This funding commitment by the EIB will further support the next stage of our COVID-19 scale-up activities as we expand our production capacity to enable global supply.”
