The founders of the pharma firm BioNTech — who helped pioneer COVID-19 vaccines — are leaving the company to focus on research to advance mRNA technology.
Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, a Turkish husband-and-wife team, became unlikely celebrities during the pandemic: 366 million doses of BioNTech’s vaccine, developed with Pfizer, were administered in the US alone by 2023.
It won the pair many awards and a huge fortune: Forbes estimated that Şahin is worth $3.5 billion, and they retain large shares. But they told Handelsblatt that being managers is “not what we are passionate about.”
Their next venture could be lucrative, too, though: mRNA technology has improved since the pandemic and is projected to become a $78 billion industry by 2035.
