Coronavirus vaccine: Husband-wife team behind BioNTech, Pfizer's vaccine success

BioNTech and Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine has brought cheer to the people as well as the markets amid a pall of gloom. The pharma partners' COVID-19 vaccine is the first major candidate to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial. Pfizer said on Monday that its experimental vaccine showed more than 90 per cent efficacy in preventing coronavirus. The credit for the effective candidate lies with a married couple who have devoted their lives to fighting cancer.

BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin, 55, son of Turkish immigrants who worked at the Ford factory in Cologne is now one of the 100 richest Germans, along with wife and board member Oezlem Tuereci, 53.

The Nasdaq-listed BioNTech founded by the duo saw its fortunes soar from $4.6 billion a year ago to $21 billion after Friday's close. Board member Matthias Kromayer is all praises for Sahin and said that despite his achievements, the BioNTech CEO has never changed from being humble and personable, as mentioned in a report in Reuters. 

Sahin has been seen typically walking into business meetings clad in jeans and carrying his bicycle helmet and backpack. He always wanted to study medicine and become a physician, which took him to work at teaching hospitals in Cologne and Homburg. That's where he met Tuereci who, too, shared his passion for medical research and oncology. Tuereci is the daughter of a Turkish physician who migrated to Germany.

They set up Ganymed Pharmaceuticals in 2001 to develop cancer-fighting antibodies. Sahin, meanwhile, continued academic research and teaching. The team behind Ganymed founded BioNTech in 2008 in order to pursue a broader range of cancer immunotherapy tools.

In January this year, Sahin came across news of a new coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. He realised that the transition from anti-cancer mRNA drugs to mRNA-based viral vaccine was just a few steps away. BioNTech quickly formed a team of 500 to work on several possible compounds. It eventually saw pharma giant Pfizer and Chinese company Fosun as partners in March. The rest, as they say, is history.

According to Kromayer, Sahin and Tuereci are a "dream team" that managed to reconcile their visions and the constraints of reality.

Also read: BioNTech, Pfizer stocks skyrocket after COVID vaccine shows over 90% efficacy

Also read: Pfizer, BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine found 90% effective in fighting virus