Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, co-founders of BioNTech SE, developer of the first vaccine to prevent Covid-19, are to embark on a new venture focused on exploring the therapeutic potential of messenger RNA. They will leave BioNTech, founded in 2008, in order to work on foundational science. For its part, BioNTech will concentrate on advancing a late clinical-stage pipeline of cancer therapies, “For us, this is the right time to prepare to hand over the baton,” said Dr Sahin in a statement issued on 10 March. “At the same time, Öziem and I are ready to become pioneers once again.”
The first stage of the transaction is expected to complete at the end of the 2026 first half. This will be an agreement giving the new venture rights to BioNTech’s mRNA technologies in exchange for a minority stake in the new company and other considerations such as milestone payments. The transition of management from the old company to the new, and the naming of new BioNTech executives, is expected to take place by the end of the year.
BioNTech ended 2025 with revenue of €2.9 billion and an operating loss of €903.7 million. Spending on R&D, excluding impairments, was €2 billion. In addition to the large outlays for R&D, the operating result was affected by expenses from settlements of contractual disputes and the repositioning of candidate products in the company’s portfolio. BioNTech ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of €17.2 billion.
This year, the company expects to report data on six late-stage trials across several cancer types. The candidate drugs include immunomodulators, antibody-drug conjugates, and mRNA cancer immunotherapies. Under a research agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb Co, BioNTech is conducting eight Phase 3 trials of an immunomodulator called pumitamig. This is a bispecific antibody designed to simultaneously target the PD-L1 checkpoint protein and the vascular endothelial growth Factor A in order to stop the progression of cancer.
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