Sahin is a co-founder and chief executive of BioNTech SE, a developer of immunotherapies including a Covid-19 vaccine. The Mainz, Germany-based company produces treatments to fight cancer and worked with Pfizer Inc. to develop a coronavirus vaccine. BioNTech had revenue of 19 billion euros ($22.4 billion) in 2021.
Ugur Sahin's net worth of $6.55B can buy ...
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The majority of Sahin's fortune is derived from his stake in BioNTech. He directly owns about 18% of the company through his full ownership of Mainz, Germany-based firm Medine GmbH, according to a February 2022 regulatory filing.
BioNTech raised $150 million in October 2019 through pricing its American depositary shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol BNTX.
Sahin was born in Turkey in 1965. He moved at a young age to Germany, where his parents worked at a Ford factory in Cologne.
Sahin completed his medical studies in 1990 at the University of Cologne. He then started working as a physician at the university and later relocated to Mainz, where he met his wife, Ozlem Tureci, a fellow physician and Turkish immigrant.
In 2000, Sahin began exploring whether mRNA could be used for cancer vaccines. The idea was not initially popular with investors, so when Sahin, Tureci and Huber started their first company, Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG, in 2001, they focused on more established approaches. About eight year later, Thomas and Andreas Struengmann, brothers who had made billions in the generic drugs industry, helped put mRNA cancer vaccine research into a new company that became BioNTech.
BioNTech raised $150 million in October 2019 through pricing its American depositary shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol BNTX. The Mainz, Germany-based biotech company typically develops treatments to fight cancer but it teamed up with drug-maker Pfizer Inc. in 2020 to develop a vaccine for the Covid-19 virus.
Sahin lives with his family in Germany.