BioNTech founders plan exit to set up new venture, shares slump

By Ludwig Burger and Patricia Weiss

FRANKFURT, March 10 (Reuters) – BioNTech’s two co-founders and leading executives will leave the COVID-19 vaccine maker by the end of the year to start a new venture, driving the German biotech’s shares down more than 20% to their lowest level since August 2024.

CEO Ugur Sahin and Chief Medical Officer Oezlem Tuereci, the married couple behind the Western world’s most commonly used immunisation shot during the pandemic, said in a statement they were “ready to become pioneers again”.

BioNTech said it had initiated a search for successors to ensure a smooth transition.

Sahin told Reuters that talks would be held over the next few months on funding by BioNTech in the new venture, which could amount to a “significant minority stake”.

“We realised that BioNTech’s focus on late-stage clinical development meant (we) simply didn’t have enough time for research and development,” Sahin said.

“There is huge potential that needs to be tapped into both at BioNTech and at the new company,” he added.

BioNTech, which developed and sold the COVID-19 shot with Pfizer, said it plans to contribute certain rights and mRNA technologies to the new company on an arm’s-length basis in exchange for a minority stake and payments contingent on scientific and commercial achievements.

Sahin said he and Tureci would explore future drugs based on mRNA, the same technology used for the COVID-19 vaccine, at an early stage before any human testing. He said the size of its budget and location of headquarters had not yet been decided.

“The departure of the founders leaves many questions unanswered and is very bad news for the company and its shareholders,” said Markus Manns, a fund manager at Union Investment, saying BioNTech was losing its “heart and mind”.

RETURN TO EARLY DISCOVERY WORK

“We support (Sahin and Tuereci) in taking the opportunity to apply their strengths and undivided attention to a new venture,” said BioNTech Supervisory Board Chairman Helmut Jeggle.

BioNTech said its drug development, including cancer therapies and the COVID-19 vaccine franchise, would be unaffected by the departure.

Founded in 2008, BioNTech has sought since the pandemic to make a mark beyond vaccines, pursuing experimental cancer treatments among other fields. That was part of an effort to show its success with Pfizer – chalking up more than $40 billion in combined vaccines sales in 2021 and 2022 – was not a one-off.

In a major milestone, Bristol Myers Squibb last year agreed to pay up to $11.1 billion in a partnership to work on a next-generation cancer immunotherapy that could take on rival Merck & Co’s best-selling drug Keytruda.

In a separate statement, BioNTech reported a net loss of 1.14 billion euros ($1.33 billion) for last year, compared with a loss of 665 million euros in 2024.

Still, despite continued spending on new drug development, the commercial success of the coronavirus shot left BioNTech with reserves of cash and financial securities of 17.2 billion euros at the end of 2025.

The vaccine has also received the highest scientific recognition: Hungarian scientist Katalin Kariko in 2023 was among two winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine for her work on mRNA and her contributions to BioNTech’s COVID vaccine.

($1 = 0.8593 euros)

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Editing by Linda Pasquini, Louise Heavens and Alexander Smith)