FRANKFURT AM MAIN: German company BioNTech, which developed the first coronavirus vaccine approved in the West, said Monday it expects to produce 2 billion doses in 2021, up from the previous forecast of 1.3 billion doses.

"We now believe that we can potentially deliver approximately 2 billion doses in total by the end of 2021, which incorporates the updated 6-dose label," said the company, referring to the additional dose that could be extracted from each vial of the vaccine.

A new factory in Marburg, Germany, is also expected to open in February, and would help to ramp up its production capacity.