The share price of the German biotechnology giant, BioNTech, has fallen by 20%, reaching its lowest level since August 2024. This sharp market reaction is linked to the unexpected decision made by the company’s founders and leading figures: CEO Ugur Sahin and Chief Medical Officer Özlem Türeci.
The couple, who created one of the world’s most popular mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, will leave the company at the end of the year.
What is the reason behind this decision?
The main reason for the departure of BioNTech’s founders is the company’s growth in scale and the shifting of its scientific focus.
The reason for this decision is simple: as Ugur Sahin explained, once BioNTech became a global corporation, the company’s resources and attention shifted primarily toward the late stages of clinical trials (final testing and bringing drugs to market). This meant the founders no longer had enough time for their main passion: fundamental scientific research (R&D).
They want to return to laboratory research and scientific discovery. Since BioNTech transformed into a global giant, the vast majority of the founders’ time was consumed by business management, bureaucracy, and overseeing drug sales. The scientists, however, prefer to devote all their energy back into creating new medicines and developing mRNA technology. It is precisely to gain this freedom that they are founding a new company, where the main focus will not be on commerce, but on scientific discovery.
What will be the future of BioNTech?
Although BioNTech ended the last year with a net loss of 1.14 billion euros, the company remains financially stable. By the end of 2025, its reserves stood at 17.2 billion euros.
Investors and experts are not hiding their concern. Markus Manns, a fund manager at Union Investment, noted that with the founders’ departure, the company is losing its “heart and mind.” Nevertheless, BioNTech’s supervisory board supports Sahin and Türeci’s decision and states that the company’s current projects, including the production of cancer and COVID-19 vaccines, are not at risk.
As a reminder, BioNTech’s mRNA technology received the highest scientific recognition when one of its leading scientists, Katalin Karikó, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2023.
