BioNTech raises sales guidance, touts progress on oncology pipeline

BioNTech revised its full-year sales forecast higher on the back of feverish demand for its Covid-19 vaccine and announced further progress in oncology pipeline.

The German biotechnology outfit, which developed the shot together with Pfizer, also announced plans to expand into Asia.

"BioNTech has continued to execute the delivery of our COVID-19 vaccine globally to more than 90 countries and territories. Through our continued innovation, we are expanding access to new populations and geographies, and addressing emerging variants," chief executive officer Ugur Sahin said.

With orders already to supply 1.8bn vaccine doses in 2021, the firm now anticipated that it would generate sales of €12.4bn, up from the €9.8bn it had previously anticipated.

Together with Pfizer it now also expected to ramp up its manufacturing capacity in 2022 to reach 3.0bn doses.

Its oncology pipeline was also accelerating, with 14 product candidates now in 15 ongoing trials.

Three of those oncology programmes were now moving into late-stage testing, Sahin added.

"Looking ahead, we will further optimize our technologies and expand our pipeline into additional therapeutic indications, as we meet our ambition to become a global, fully-integrated immunotherapy company," he said.

The new headquarters for south east Asia would be located in Singapore, alongside a fully-integrated manufacturing plant.

On a follow-up conference call, Sahin added that he did not yet see a need to adapt the vaccine shot to the new variants.

Worth noting, changes to the vaccine would not affect or delay the manufacturing process, he also explained.

"At the moment we don’t see any reason to adapt our vaccine, but we are working to establish a process and a regulatory framework."

As of 1603 BST, American Depositary Receipts of BioNTech were advancing by 4.76% to $192.45.

-- More to follow --