Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine with an efficacy rate of 90% wouldn’t have been possible without this husband and wife team.
BioNTech’s CEO Ugur Sahin and his wife and fellow board member Ozlem Tureci founded BioNTech in 2008 along with Christoph Huber, Sahin’s former professor. Their company has primarily been focused on combating cancer but directed much of its focus to the coronavirus at the beginning of the year.
Sahin assembled a 40-person team to work on the project, dubbed “Project Lightspeed.” They quickly developed 20 vaccine candidates. Sahin contacted Pfizer to assist them in conducting large-scale clinical trials.
Tureci and Sahin are immunotherapy specialists focused on using messenger RNA molecules to trigger the production of certain proteins in cells. They believe this method could train the immune system to attack cancer cells, and with the spread of the novel coronavirus, the couple made a bet that the method could be used to fight COVID-19.
The two Turkish immigrants to Germany met at Saarland University in Homburg and were married in 2002. Tureci has said that, even on their wedding day, the pair spent time in the lab. Their dedication paid off.
“This is a historical moment,” said Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, in a statement. “This was a devastating situation, a pandemic, and we have embarked on a path and a goal that nobody ever has achieved — to come up with a vaccine within a year.”
Pfizer and BioNTech announced the efficacy rate of the vaccine on Monday. In their announcement, they said they will seek an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration after they report additional safety data from the second dose of the vaccination. They expect to have that data by the third week of November.
