TaraDeS — 3 weeks ago(March 11, 2026 06:31 AM)

BioNTech Founders leave Board and start new Company
Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci will step down from their leadership at BioNTech by the end of the year.
The pharmaceutical company gained prominence during the coronavirus pandemic.
Recently it posted a billion-euro loss. Both factors put significant pressure on the stock.
Saying goodbye to BioNTech: Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin want a fresh start.
BioNTech founders Özlem Türeci (59) and Uğur Şahin (60) plan to step down from their leadership roles at the Mainz-based biotech company and establish a new venture. The management change is expected to take place by the end of 2026. The company, which gained prominence through its COVID-19 vaccine, announced on Tuesday. The couple intends to remain shareholders in BioNTech (currently holding approximately 15% according to company statements).
"Özlem and I want to once again break new ground as pioneers,"
Şahin said in a statement. It was always their vision to translate scientific advancements into progress for patients. Now, they have the opportunity to unlock the next generation of innovations. The new company will focus on researching and developing next-generation mRNA innovations. BioNTech itself will concentrate more on its growing pipeline of product candidates in late-stage clinical development.
The supervisory board has begun the search for successors to the CEO and CFO positions.
BioNTech plans to contribute rights and mRNA technologies to the new company.
In return, BioNTech is to receive a minority stake as well as future milestone payments and royalties. A binding agreement is expected by the end of the first half of the year. The existing clinical pipeline and the COVID-19 vaccine business will remain unaffected by these plans.
Business with COVID-19 Vaccine continues
Şahin and Türeci founded BioNTech in 2008. Their initial goal was to develop mRNA-based cancer therapies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mainz-based company quickly shifted all its resources to developing an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 – with great success. The company won the race against several competitors and, together with its USA partner Pfizer, received the first marketing authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine.
BioNTech subsequently earned billions and expanded rapidly. Şahin and Türeci received numerous prestigious awards, including the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2021 and, together with their former colleague and later Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2022, one of Germany's most important medical awards.
Years after the pandemic, BioNTech's profits and revenues shrank significantly again, and although the business with the coronavirus vaccine continues, the focus long since shifted back to research on mRNA therapies for cancer and other diseases. The vaccine remains the only BioNTech product on the market that is regularly being further developed. Hopes for the future rest on several late-stage clinical trials for cancer drugs. BioNTech aims to submit several regulatory applications for oncology therapies by 2030.
Billion-Euro Loss in 2025
Faced with continued high development costs, BioNTech suffered a billion-euro loss in fiscal year 2025. The company also announced on Tuesday that the net loss amounted to EUR 1.12 billion. This was significantly higher than the EUR 665.3 million loss in the previous fiscal year. According to the Mainz-based company, revenue climbed to EUR 2.87 billion in 2025 (previous year: EUR 2.76 billion). BioNTech attributed this increase to revenue from its collaboration with the USA pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb.
The departure of BioNTech's founders and the billion-euro loss severely impacted the company's stock in pre-market trading on Tuesday. The share price ultimately plummeted by almost 14% to USD 88. This would represent the lowest level in regular trading on the Nasdaq technology exchange since April of last year.
The company expects revenues of between EUR 2.0 - 2.3 billion for the current year 2026. These revenues should offset the planned research and development costs of EUR 2.2 -2.5 billion, it said.
“Our solid financial position is driving our research and development activities forward while reducing their risks as we prepare for multiple product launches in the coming years,”
said Chief Financial Officer Ramon Zapata.
https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/pharma/biontech-gruender-ugur-sahin-und-oezlem-tuereci-verlassen-vorstand-und-gruenden-neue-firma-a-663ebce9-c7f5-4b0b-8dea-07848b5b9914
March 10, 2026
The two founders conducted research 2008-2019 with little success.
Then the two Strüngmann brothers invested in 2019, just when the corona
"pandemic"
began.
Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann invested around USD 180 million in BioNTech, a company founded in 2008. As recently as July 2020, they owned about 50% of BioNTech. The rapid increase in BioNTech's share price in