Ugur Sahin is the sole shareholder of a German company that controls an 18% stake in BioNTech.
Highlight
- BioNTech co-founder Ugur Sahin joined the 500 richest people in the world
- BioNTech shares rose 8% this week, more than 250% on the year
- The German firm, focused on the fight against cancer, diverted attention to Covid
Ugur Sahin has just reached another milestone.
The BioNTech SE co-founder joined the world’s 500 richest people on Thursday after the UK this week approved the use of a Covid-19 vaccine the German firm created with Pfizer Inc.
BioNTech shares are up nearly 8% this week and are up over 250% for the year. Sahin is now the 493rd richest person on the planet with a net worth of $ 5.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Sahin did not respond to a request for comment made through BioNTech’s press office.
The UK was the first Western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, paving the way for the deployment of an injection that Pfizer and BioNTech have said is 95% effective in preventing disease. BioNTech is still awaiting a decision from the US Food and Drug Administration and European Union regulators.
The German firm previously focused on fighting cancer, but Sahin and his wife Ozlem Tureci, BioNTech’s chief medical officer, sharpened their focus on Covid-19 in January after reading a concerning study on the spread of the virus in a family that had visited Wuhan, China. Their results are a validation of the new type of drug they have pursued throughout their careers.
“It could open up the pharmaceutical field for a new class of molecules,” Sahin said last month.
Company shares are up more than 250% this year
Turkish-born scientist Sahin is the sole shareholder in a German company that controls an 18% stake in BioNTech, which raised $ 150 million from its initial public offering in the United States last year, documents show.
Sahin joins the Struengmann brothers from Germany among the 500 richest in the world. They own about half of BioNTech and backed the previous biotech company that Sahin established with his wife, Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG. The brothers’ fortune is estimated at more than $ 24 billion combined.
The race to produce a Covid-19 vaccine has also raised a group of investors to BioNTech’s closest rival, Moderna Inc.
Shares of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company have risen more than 700% this year, turning some of the early investors into billionaires, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Bob Langer and University of California professor. Harvard Tim Springer, as well as CEO Stephane Bancel, who is now worth $ 4.9 billion.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated channel.)
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