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Darmstadt (dpa) - The German pharmaceutical and specialty chemicals group Merck and the corona vaccine manufacturer Biontech are expanding their cooperation.
Merck wants to significantly accelerate the delivery of the lipids urgently needed by Biontech and increase delivery quantities by the end of the year, as the Dax company announced on Friday in Darmstadt.
Lipids are used in the manufacture of the Covid-19 vaccine BNT162b2, which Biontech sells under the name Comirnaty together with its US partner Pfizer.
The messenger substance of the mRNA vaccine is packaged in a kind of envelope made of lipids.
These fat-like molecules are important so that the active ingredients of the mRNA vaccine are released and the vaccination can take effect.
Merck and Biontech had already worked together before the corona pandemic and recently intensified this partnership.
In the past few weeks, Merck has been working on expanding its already very high lipid production capacity, the press release said.
According to the information, Biontech and the Darmstadt company are currently working on the exact requirements.
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The vaccination campaign in Germany had recently stalled due to delivery problems at the manufacturers.
As recently announced after the vaccination summit, this is due, among other things, to the supply of lipids in the case of mRNA vaccines.
Only a few companies in Germany could manufacture these, according to the industry.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210205-99-312127 / 2