Positive data on BioNTech and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is an unlikely success for the married couple behind the German biotech firm, who have devoted their lives to harnessing the immune system against cancer reut.rs/3eF264r 1/6
From humble roots as the son of a Turkish immigrant working at a Ford factory in Cologne, BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin now figures among the 100 richest Germans, together with his wife and fellow board member Oezlem Tuereci, according to weekly Welt am Sonntag 2/6 
Pfizer said said its experimental vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on initial data from a large study. Pfizer and BioNTech are the first drugmakers to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine 3/6
For Matthias Kromayer, a board member of venture capital firm MIG AG, Tuereci and Sahin are a 'dream team' in that they reconciled their visions with the constraints of reality 4/6
The BioNTech story took a twist when Sahin in January came across a scientific paper on a new coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan and it struck him how small the step was from anti-cancer mRNA drugs to mRNA-based viral vaccines 5/6
BioNTech quickly assigned about 500 staff to project 'light speed' to work on several possible compounds, winning pharma giant Pfizer and Chinese drugmaker Fosun as partners in March. Read the full story reut.rs/3eF264r 6/6
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
