Inspired to Discovery and Medical Treatments

"The value of my stake doesn't interest me." 

"We wanted to build up a firm similar to biotech giants like Amgen or Genentech. We want to create long-term value."

"That's what interests me."

BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin, 55, Turkish-German biotech entrepreneur

Dr Özlem Türeci and Dr Uğur Şahin, who both have parents who came to Germany from Turkey in the late 1960s. Photograph: Biontech

The behind-the-scenes story of a married pair of bioengineers backstops the sensational report that Pfizer has announced an astounding 90% success rate in the early stages of its Third Stage human trials for their anti-COVID vaccine. Theirs is an immigrant-success story of quite considerable proportions. The pair is devoted to discovering whatever can be found to support the human immune system against dire threats to human life. Their primary focus has been to discover new drugs and therapeutic protocols in the battle against cancer.

They turned their focus temporarily to finding possible solutions to the enigma of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 whose complexity of assaults against the human body has caused great consternation among epidemiologists as it continues to sweep through the world community, wreaking unstoppable havoc. Unstoppable until such time as an effective, efficient and safe vaccine can be produced, distributed and inoculate as much of the world's population as possible with, to achieve that vaunted herd effect.

Pfizer and BioNTech, the first drugmakers to indicate that initial data from their large study spells success for a novel coronavirus vaccine have up to the present seen no indications of any serious safety concerns, and are confident that U.S. emergency use authorization will be on an early horizon.

 

BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin is the son of a Turkish immigrant who worked in Cologne, Germany at a Ford factory. The offspring of that factory worker in Germany is now among the 100 wealthiest Germans, along with his wife and BioNTech board member, Oezlem Tuereci, 53, who is also the firm's chief medical officer. 

 

Nasdaq-listed BioNTech, co-founded by the pair now stands at $21billion. A year ago its market value was $4.6 billion. BioNTech employs a workforce exceeding 1,300 people from over 60 countries, more than half of them science-qualified women

Matthias Kromayer, board member of venture capital firm MIG AG, backers of BioNTech since its 2008 inception, describes Ugur Sahin as a modest man: "Despite his achievements, he never changed from being incredibly humble and personable". Professor Sahin, he continued, typically attended business meetings in jeans, carrying his bicycle helmet and backpack.

The Turkish-German entrepreneur was faithful to his childhood dream to become a physician. His experience includes working at teaching hospitals in Cologne and the south-western city of Homburg, and it was there that he met his future wife during his early academic career. They were both wedded to medical research and oncology, as well as to one another.

For her part, Oezlem Tuereci's father is a Turkish physician who migrated to Germany. She and her husband have consistently focused on the human immune system hoping to be able to harness it in the fight against cancer as they attempted to address each tumour's unique genetic makeup. In 2001 they launched themselves as entrepreneurs, setting up Ganymed Pharmaceuticals for the purpose of developing cancer-fighting antibodies.

Professor Sahin never surrendered interest in research and teaching and served as a professor at Mainz University. MIG AG provided the funding they needed along with Thomas and Andreas Struengmann when Novartis bought out their generic drugs company in 2005. The couple looked to the future, building BioNTech in 2008 in pursuit of a broader range of cancer immuno-therapy tools.