Pfizer to invest $470m to develop research of coronavirus vaccine technology

Pfizer plans to spend $470 million to expand its vaccine research and development facilities in north-west of New York City to maintain its edge in Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) field, according to the company officials.

The company decided to renovate existing facilities on its campus in Pearl River, which has been the focal point for laboratory research driving its vaccine programmes in collaboration with BioNTech.

“Expanding Pearl River will bring additional lab space to develop a new portfolio of mRNA vaccines hoped to prevent influenza and other viral pathogens,” Steve Bjornson Pfizer’s vice president said.

In the campus, the scientists were responsible for designing the vaccine, testing it on animals and conducting other quality checks and analysis.

The coronavirus vaccine has almost increased Pfizer’s annual revenue with more than $36 billion in 2021 sales.

Pfizer is targeting to increase that success by applying mRNA to other diseases.

The expansion will create lab capacity for up to 370 additional staff.

The Pearl River campus hosts more than 1,000 Pfizer employees, hundreds of whom worked on the coronavirus vaccine.

Pfizer recently made a $29 million investment to establish a lab in Pearl River that used to study potentially dangerous infectious agents such as the coronavirus.