When the German biotechnology company BioNTech picked a street called An der Goldgrube or At the Goldmine in the western city of Mainz for its headquarters, the couple behind it could not have predicted how prophetic the address would turn out to be.
The company’s shares shot up 23.4% on Monday morning after the Covid-19 vaccine it is developing with the US pharma giant Pfizer became the first candidate worldwide to show positive results in phase 3 trials, the crucial final stage of testing.
The total value of BioNTech’s stock is currently $21.9bn (£16.6bn), more than four times that of German national carrier Lufthansa and a triumph for a company that only made its debut on the US stock market a year ago.
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Founded in 2008 by the married scientists Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin and the Austrian oncologist Christoph Huber, the company originally set out to develop new types of immunotherapy against cancer, modifying patients’ T cells to target cancer-specific antigens.
When news of the coronavirus first surfaced at the start of the year, BioNTech, which employs 1,300 people, was quick to reallocate its resources. Sahin, its CEO, told Germany’s Manager Magazin that when he told read about the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan in January, he told his wife that “in April they’ll have to shut the schools here”.
Germany entered its first lockdown in March, earlier than Sahin had anticipated, but by then his company had already developed 20 candidates for a vaccine, of which it would go on to test five for immune reactions in a research programme accompanied by 500 scientists called Lightspeed.
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