"I understood that what we can offer cancer patients at the hospitals is not much, and we could do more by bringing new discoveries to the patient's bedside," Türeci toldPer the Times, the duo came into the laboratory the morning of their 2002 wedding, left to perform the ceremony, and then returned to work later that day.Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of German biotech firm BioNTech, is interviewed by journalists in Marburg.
A health care worker injects a patient with a syringe of the phase 3 Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine trial in Turkey in October 2020.According to the Times, Sahin read an article from The Lancet in January on Wuhan's outbreak. He spotted the potential dangers and, according to Reuters, saw how BioNTech's work on mRNA could be applicable for a vaccine.
As Business Insider's Andrew Dunn reported, BioNTech had worked on a potential flu vaccine with Pfizer in 2018. As Sahin began to focus on coronavirus research, he called Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer's head of vaccine research, in February.By September, German weekly Welt am Sonntag listed the duo as among the 100 richest Germans — they came in at 85th.Sahin reportedly doesn't check the company's share price.