- The german company BioNTech founded by two scientists has teamed up with Pfizer on a vaccine which is 90 percent effective.
- Two years ago Dr. Sahin and his company BioNTech were little known outside the small world of European biotechnology startups.
- On Monday, BioNTech and fizer announced that a vaccine for the coronavirus developed by Dr.Sahin and his team is 90 percent effective.
- The stunning results vaults BioNTech and Pfizer to the front of the race to find a cure for a disease that has killed more than 1.2 million people worldwide.
According to a recent New York Times news report by David Gelles, a husband and wife team has put enormous efforts to find the Covid 19 vaccine.
How did the work began?
BioNTech began work on the vaccine in January, after Dr. Sahin read an article in the medical journal The Lancet that left him convinced that the coronavirus, at the time spreading quickly in parts of China, would explode into a full-blown pandemic. Scientists at the company, based in Mainz, Germany, canceled vacations and set to work on what they called Project Lightspeed.
“There are not too many companies on the planet which have the capacity and the competence to do it so fast as we can do it,” Dr. Sahin said in an interview last month. “So it felt not like an opportunity, but a duty to do it, because I realized we could be among the first coming up with a vaccine.”
About Dr. Sahin
Dr. Sahin, 55, was born in Iskenderun, Turkey. When he was 4, his family moved to Cologne, Germany, where his parents worked at a Ford factory. He grew up wanting to be a doctor, and became a physician at the University of Cologne.
In 1993, he earned a doctorate from the university for his work on immunotherapy in tumor cells.
How Dr. Sahin met Dr. Türeci?
Early in his career, he met Dr. Türeci. She had early hopes to become a nun and ultimately wound up studying medicine.
Dr. Türeci, now 53 and the chief medical officer of BioNTech, was born in Germany, the daughter of a Turkish physician who immigrated from Istanbul.
On the day they were married, Dr. Sahin and Dr. Türeci returned to the lab after the ceremony.
The doctor couple were focused on research and teaching
The pair were initially focused on research and teaching, including at the University of Zurich, where Dr. Sahin worked in the lab of Rolf Zinkernagel, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in medicine.
BioNTech was gaining momentum
Even before the pandemic, BioNTech was gaining momentum.
The company raised hundreds of millions of dollars and now has more than 1,800 people on staff, with offices in Berlin, other German cities and Cambridge, Mass.
In 2018, it began its partnership with Pfizer.
Last year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $55 million to fund its work treating H.I.V. and tuberculosis.
Also in 2019, Dr. Sahin was awarded the Mustafa Prize, a biennial Iranian prize for Muslims in science and technology.
Modest lifestyle
The two billionaires live with their teenage daughter in a modest apartment near their office. They ride bicycles to work. They do not own a car.
“Trust and personal relationship is so important in such business, because everything is going so fast,” Dr. Sahin said. “We still have a term sheet and not yet a final contract on many things.”
Dr. Sahin, the gentleman
“Ugur is a very, very unique individual,” Mr. Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, said in the interview last month. “He cares only about science. Discussing business is not his cup of tea. He doesn’t like it at all. He’s a scientist and a man of principles. I trust him 100 percent.”
Did you subscribe to our daily newsletter?
It’s Free! Click here to Subscribe!
Source: The New York Times
