BioNTech Hands Covid Production to Pfizer as Founders Chart a Separate Course

BioNTech will shut three German manufacturing sites by end-2028, affecting 1,800 staff, as Pfizer takes over Covid-19 vaccine production.

BioNTech is pulling up stakes from the industrial footprint it built during the pandemic, confirming that three German manufacturing sites will close in stages after no buyer emerged for the facilities. The Mainz-based biotech has arranged for Pfizer, its long-standing Covid-19 vaccine partner, to take over production of the shot — a handover that effectively ends BioNTech's role as a large-scale vaccine manufacturer in its home country.

The wind-down will run through the end of 2028, with Tübingen the first to go at the close of 2027, followed by Marburg in early 2028 and Idar-Oberstein at the end of that year. Roughly 1,800 staff across the three sites are affected, about 440 of them at Idar-Oberstein alone. Local reaction has been sharp: Tübingen's mayor, Boris Palmer, called the plans alarming, while the works council in Idar-Oberstein spoke of a severe loss of trust in management. The retreat marks an abrupt reversal of the expansion drive the company undertook only a few years ago.

A Founder Exit Running in Parallel

News of the plant closures has landed alongside word that U?ur ?ahin and Özlem Türeci, the husband-and-wife team behind BioNTech's science, intend to build a new venture called Arife SE. That entity is being set up as an independent company and is explicitly not a BioNTech project, though for Mainz it still amounts to a significant turning point. People familiar with the matter describe friction ahead of the move, with patents, future financing and the transfer of staff among the sticking points. The founders' departure leaves open questions about who will steer BioNTech's research agenda.

?ahin, for his part, remains closely tied to the company. Filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission show he continues to hold the overwhelming majority of his stake through Medine GmbH, with only isolated sales executed under a pre-arranged trading plan.

Delaware Court Lets Monsanto Claims Proceed

Legal pressure is building at the same time. A federal judge in Delaware declined motions from BioNTech, Pfizer and Moderna to throw out patent-infringement suits brought by Monsanto, a Bayer subsidiary. The ruling stops well short of finding that any patent was infringed — it simply allows the plaintiffs to press their case in court. How the company's intellectual property is divided as the founders pursue their own path has become a central question for investors, who are watching which research programmes and patents stay inside the group.

Oncology Data Offers the Counterweight

Against that unsettled backdrop, BioNTech's clinical pipeline continues to advance. Roughly two weeks ago the company and partner OncoC4 released updated Phase 3 results from the PRESERVE-003 trial, which is evaluating gotistobart in previously treated squamous non-small cell lung cancer. Median overall survival in the first phase reached 18.5 months, against 10.0 months on standard chemotherapy. The shares have added 2.9% since that readout.

BioNTech closed Friday at EUR 86.10, giving the stock a gain of 5.8% since the start of the year and a market capitalisation of EUR 21.60 billion. The company is trading its pandemic-era windfall for a narrower identity as a cancer specialist. Shedding surplus capacity should lower costs down the road, but the near-term friction is real, and the pace at which the oncology candidates reach commercial approval will decide how the market values the transition.