Hameln plant which provides fill and finish for Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot should be fully operational within the week, CDMO says

Siegfried Group says it has started to ramp up production at its facilities after falling victim to a cyber-attack last month, although the Swiss-based CDMO warned of first-half losses in volumes and sales due to the interruption.

Siegfried said its plant in Hameln, Germany, which currently provides fill and finish services for BioNTech and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, should be fully operational again by the beginning of next week.

On the night of Friday, May 21, a malware attack on Siegfried's IT network was discovered by internal monitoring services which resulted in production being safely reduced at various locations.

The company’s network connections were interrupted and all IT systems were subsequently subjected to an in-depth investigation.

“As a result of the attack, there will be losses in volume and sales in the first half of the year with costs that continue to run during the brief interruption, but these can be made up for the whole year,” the company said in a statement.

Based on the results of advanced forensic investigations, no sensitive customer data was affected by the incident and there is no likely permanent damage to its IT infrastructure, systems and facilities, Siegfried said.

The CDMO’s two facilities in the Barcelona region of Spain, Barberà del Vallès and El Masno – which it acquired from Novartis last year -- were not affected by the incident as they run on isolated IT networks, Siegfried said.

Siegfried has facilities in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Malta, the US and China and manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients, intermediates and finished dosage forms such as tablets, capsules, sterile vials, ampoules, cartridges and ointments.