BioNTech envisioned the site making hundreds of millions of vaccines a year, but has since shifted its pipeline to other modalities while mRNA technology continues to face headwinds in the U.S.
BioNTech is closing a Singapore production plant less than four years after buying the site from Novartis to supply mRNA vaccines and therapies in the Asia-Pacific region.
When BioNTech bought the facility in November 2022, the company expected the facility to be fully operational in late 2023 and create more than 100 jobs. This week, BioNTech told The Straits Times that the planned Singapore site will close by the end of February. The company employs 85 people at the plant.
BioNTech framed the shuttering of the facility as part of efforts to align capacity with its pipeline and long-term strategic direction. The company bought the plant to support clinical and commercial supply of its mRNA vaccines and therapeutics across the Asia-Pacific region. However, BioNTech’s R&D pipeline subsequently diversified beyond mRNA, setting the company up for growth even as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came down hard on the technology over the past year. In August, Kennedy canceled around $500 million in BARDA contracts associated with mRNA vaccine development, for example.
“Under the FDA and [Health Secretary] RFK Jr., it really feels like they’ve declared war on mRNA vaccines,” Piper Sandler analyst Ted Tenthoff said at an event with Moderna in December 2025.
BioNTech’s initial plans for the Singapore site included potential expansions to support production of other drug classes, such as cell therapies. However, the primary purpose of the facility was to establish the capacity to make several hundred million doses of mRNA-based vaccines a year. With vaccine sales falling and BioNTech’s pipeline evolving, the company’s need for that level of capacity has diminished.
In 2022, BioNTech reported €17.3 billion ($20 billion) in sales driven by Comirnaty, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Pfizer. Last year, BioNTech’s sales totaled €2.9 billion ($3.3 billion). The company expects COVID-19 vaccine sales to fall this year. BioNTech and Pfizer recently stopped a COVID-19 vaccine study over slow enrollment.
The company’s chances of returning to growth lie outside mRNA. BioNTech’s pipeline prospects include the anti-CTLA-4 antibody gotistobart, HER2-directed antibody-drug conjugate BNT323 and PD-L1xVEGF-A bispecific BNT327. Amid the shift, BioNTech’s founders and top executives Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci are leaving the biotech to start a new company focused on mRNA.
BioNTech shared plans for the mRNA manufacturing facility in Singapore in 2021. At the time, the biotech planned to start building a plant that year and bring it online in 2023, Ryan Richardson, then the company’s chief strategy officer, said on an earnings call. Richardson envisioned the site providing mRNA products for regional and global markets and supporting rapid responses to pandemic threats in Asia.
The company invested in the site after choosing to buy from Novartis rather than start from scratch. In its 2025 annual report, BioNTech named investments in Singapore as a contributor to the €307.1 million ($355 million) in capital expenditures incurred last year.
