BioNTech plans to invest up to £1 billion over the next 10 years to broaden its research and development activities for innovative medicines in the United Kingdom (“UK”)
The UK Government will give BioNTech a grant of up to £129 million payable over a period of 10 years to support BioNTech’s research and development activities in the UK, marking one of the largest grants of its kind in UK history for a pharmaceutical company
Grant agreement builds on existing multi-year collaboration with the UK Government aimed at benefiting patients by accelerating clinical trials for personalized mRNA immunotherapies and focuses on establishing two new Research and Development (“R&D”) centers and a UK headquarters in London, accommodating BioNTech’s artificial intelligence (“AI”) hub
MAINZ, Germany, May 20, 2025 -- BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX, “BioNTech” or “the Company”) today announced that its subsidiary BioNTech UK Ltd. signed a grant agreement with the UK Government to broaden the Company’s R&D activities for innovative medicines in the UK. As part of the agreement, BioNTech is committed to investing up to £1 billion over the next 10 years. The Company’s efforts will be supported by a grant of up to £129 million for a period of 10 years by the UK Government, which marks one of the largest grants of its kind in UK history for a pharmaceutical company. The grant is part of the UK Government’s mission to enhance its life sciences sector and support innovative companies with the aim to unlock progress in medical science.
The grant agreement builds on a multi-year collaboration with the UK Government, announced in January 2023 , and is focused on three strategic pillars: (1) accelerating clinical trials for product candidates of BioNTech’s oncology pipeline, (2) investments into expanding BioNTech’s R&D footprint in the UK as one of the Company’s key markets, and (3) research into certain areas including structural biology, regenerative medicine, and infectious disease vaccines.
BioNTech plans to use the grant to support its establishment of two new R&D centers, the first of which will be based in Cambridge and a second of which is currently being planned. The Cambridge R&D center will focus on genomics, oncology, structural biology, and regenerative medicine, with capacity for more than 90 highly skilled scientists, including BioNTech’s existing scientists and researchers working in the UK. In addition, BioNTech will strengthen its footprint by establishing its UK headquarters in London, which will bring together the Company’s London-based teams and create new jobs in global and regional supporting functions in the UK over the next 10 years. BioNTech’s London office will also accommodate the Company’s artificial intelligence (“AI”) hub led by its wholly owned subsidiary InstaDeep Ltd. (“InstaDeep”), a leading global technology company in the field of AI and machine learning. BioNTech’s AI Hub plays a vital role in the Company’s research capabilities helping to advance AI-powered medical research.
These efforts are part of BioNTech’s global strategy to advance research and development of innovative cancer immunotherapies aimed at bringing multiple cancer treatments to the market by 2030, if successfully developed and approved. As of today, several hundred patients have gained access to investigational mRNA-based cancer immunotherapies in the UK through the collaboration as part of BioNTech’s global clinical trial programs. BioNTech’s ambition is to become a fully integrated, global immunotherapy powerhouse with the potential to improve the standard of care with innovative oncology products and prophylactic vaccines against infectious diseases.
About BioNTech
Biopharmaceutical New Technologies (BioNTech) is a global next generation immunotherapy company pioneering novel investigative therapies for cancer and other serious diseases. BioNTech exploits a wide array of computational discovery and therapeutic modalities with the intent of rapid development of novel biopharmaceuticals. Its diversified portfolio of oncology product candidates aiming to address the full continuum of cancer includes mRNA cancer immunotherapies, next-generation immunomodulators and targeted therapies such as antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and innovative chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies. Based on its deep expertise in mRNA development and in-house manufacturing capabilities, BioNTech and its collaborators are researching and developing multiple mRNA vaccine candidates for a range of infectious diseases alongside its diverse oncology pipeline. BioNTech has established a broad set of relationships with multiple global and specialized pharmaceutical collaborators, including Duality Biologics, Fosun Pharma, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, Genevant, Genmab, MediLink, OncoC4, Pfizer and Regeneron.