(Bloomberg) -- BioNTech SE plans a 50% boost in staff at its biggest German factory this year as the omicron wave drives demand for boosters of its Covid-19 vaccine.

BioNTech will add some 250 jobs this year at the factory in Marburg, north of Frankfurt, the company said by email. Some 500 people work now at the site. Also planned is an investment of about 50 million euros ($56.5 million) as well as additional office space as BioNTech assesses options for further growth.

Already one of the biggest messenger RNA vaccine factories in the world, the Marburg site has supplied more than 1.2 billion doses of the Covid vaccine BioNTech sells together with Pfizer Inc. The partners have said they’ll be able to make as much as 4 billion doses of the vaccine at sites around the world this year, as countries ramp up their booster drives.

BioNTech said it expects to make other types of mRNA vaccines at the Marburg factory once they’re approved. The German company is working on such shots for the flu and shingles together with Pfizer and has its own projects in malaria, tuberculosis and herpes. 

BioNTech bought the Marburg site in 2020 from Novartis AG, which had used it to produce complex biological medicines, and opened it for mRNA vaccine production in March 2021. The German company has added about 200 new jobs in Marburg since it took over the site in November 2020.

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