BioNTech‘s founder and CEO Dr Ugur Sahin was a “Spotlight” speaker at the October 16, 2018 World Health Summit and Grand Challenges annual meeting, which was held in Berlin, Germany. Other speakers included Bill Gates and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
In Dr Sahin’s speech he said [1, 2]
“his company might be able to use its so-called messenger RNA technology to rapidly develop a vaccine in the event of a global pandemic”
BioNTech was founded in 2008 by Dr. Sahin with his wife, Dr. Özlem Türeci. By late 2018 it was still a little known European biotechnology start-ups which mostly focused on cancer treatments. [3] Like Moderna, BioNTech had never brought a product to market.
A month earlier, 0n August 16, 2018 BioNTech announced a partnership agreement with Pfizer to collaborate on an mRNA influenza vaccines.
In September 4, 2019 the “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $55 million to fund its work treating H.I.V. and tuberculosis”.
Starting September 24, 2019 BioNTech announces commencement of their Initial Product Offering (IPO). [3, 4]
Prior to all this, in 2001, Dr. Sahin and Dr. Türeci founded Ganymed Pharmaceuticals, which developed drugs to treat cancer using monoclonal antibodies, in October 2016 they sold that company for $1.4 billion.