[ad_1]
10.11.2020 21:31; Pavlina Trifonova
Ugur Shahin, 55, and his wife, Yozlem Tureci, 53
The two researchers’ company already costs $ 22 billion
A family of doctors, descendants of Turkish guest workers in Germany, have developed the coronavirus vaccine, which has been shown to be 90% effective.
Ugur Shahin, 55, and his wife, Yozlem Tureci, 53, are so ambitious to find a way to stop the pandemic that they even spend their wedding anniversary in the lab.
Sahin was born in Turkey, but when he was 4 years old, his family emigrated to Germany, where his father began working in a Ford factory. He graduated in Medicine in Cologne and devoted himself to research in the field of immunotherapy. In the early years of his scientific career he met Ozlem. She is the daughter of a Turkish doctor, also an immigrant in Germany. Apart from love, they are also connected by an interest in medical research, which is why they quickly become a very successful professional team.
They founded their first company in 2001, whose activity focuses on the detection of antibodies against certain cancers. At the same time, there are practicing doctors and teachers. Seven years later, they created Bayontek, with which they developed the vaccine against COVID-19. The company employs about 1,300 people and, following the news of Monday’s success with the coronavirus vaccine, its shares are valued at nearly $ 22 billion. The media quickly calculated that it was four times more than one of Germany’s commercial emblems: the national airline Lufthansa, and an absolute record for a company that appeared only a year ago on the US stock exchange.
With the first news about COVID-19 from the Chinese city of Wuhan earlier in the year, Professor Ugur Shahin predicted that this would turn into a pandemic, from which German schools will likely be closed in April, which is happening. A month earlier, when Germany was blocked for the first time by the coronavirus, his company had already developed about 20 models of the vaccine. In October, he acknowledged that some of them were at a very advanced stage and that BioNTech was able to create a vaccine on its own, but would have a difficult time distributing it. That is why it partners with one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Pfizer.
Shahin’s colleagues describe him as a modest and devoted man who is rarely interested in his company’s stock because he prefers to read medical literature. Although he is already among the 100 richest people in Germany, the professor continues to bike to work and participate in company meetings in jeans and a T-shirt, as he always wore.
[ad_2]
