The Mainz corona vaccine manufacturer BioNTech is expanding.
An extensive job creation is planned for the coming months, the company said, according to a report by Welt am Sonntag.
500 new positions across all departments are currently advertised.
Before the corona pandemic, BioNTech employed a good 1,300 people.
The company worked primarily on new therapies for cancer.
Together with the US company Pfizer, BioNTech then developed the first vaccine against the coronavirus approved in many countries last year.
To do this, the company used the new mRNA technology, which is also used in the development of cancer immunotherapies.
In the past year and a half, the number of BioNTech employees has increased to around 2000.
According to the “Welt am Sonntag” report, the manufacturer now wants to invest in its own sales team of 60 employees for the first time in order to promote the marketing of approved products itself.
“We set up BioNTech as a fully integrated company from the start.
With its own research and development, production and now also a sales department, ”said board member Sierk Poetting of the newspaper.
Expansion also to Africa
The company recently announced plans to develop a vaccine against malaria.
The company also wants to set up production facilities for the vaccine in Africa.
BioNTech was founded in Mainz in 2008 by three medical professionals, including the couple Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, who then researched mRNA technology for cancer treatment.
The company was initially financed by the Hexal founders Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann with around 150 million euros.
Here you can read a background on the company and how much funding BioNTech has received from the state.