Plucky German Upstart Founded by Children of Immigrants Wins Covid-19 Vaccine Race

The small German biotech firm BioNTech, started by a husband and wife team with Turkish roots, had never brought a vaccine to market before. But its experimental technology has now become the first authorised for use in the Western world to help end the coronavirus pandemic.

Along with its US partner Pfizer, BioNTech on Wednesday said its Covid-19 vaccine has been granted approval by Britain, with a rollout planned for as early as next week.

Cancer pioneer

Mainz-based BioNTech was co-founded in 2008 by Ugur Sahin and his wife Ozlem Tureci, both scientists and the children of Turkish immigrants to Germany, as well as Austrian cancer expert Christoph Huber.

In normal times, BioNTech and its roughly 1,500 employees are focused on developing specialised immunotherapies for cancer patients based on “messenger RNA” (mRNA) molecules that trigger the building of proteins in cells, to stimulate the immune system.

It’s this same technology, which has the benefit that it can be developed more…