Ozlem Tureci, who co-founded the German company BioNTech with her husband, was working on how to use the body’s immune system to attack tumors when they learned last year of an unknown virus that infected people in China. infected.
During breakfast, the couple decided to apply the technology they had been researching for two decades to the new threat, called “Project Lightspeed”.
Within 11 months, Britain allowed the use of the mRNA vaccine that BioNTech developed with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, a week later followed by the United States. Tens of millions of people worldwide have received the shot since December.
“It is worth making brave decisions and trusting that if you have an exceptional team, you will be able to solve any problem and obstacles that come your way,” Tureci said in an interview. told The Associated Press.
One of the biggest challenges for the small business in Mainz that had to get another product on the market was how to conduct large-scale clinical trials across different regions and how to scale up the manufacturing process to meet global demand.
Together with Pfizer, the company enlisted the help of Fosun Pharma in China “to get assets, capabilities and geographic footprint on board, which we did not have,” Tureci said.
Among the lessons she and her husband, Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, learned with their colleagues was ‘how important collaboration and collaboration is internationally’.
Tureci, who was born in Germany to Turkish immigrants, said the company, which has staff members from 60 countries, had contacted medical supervisory bodies from the outset to ensure the new type of vaccine would pass the scrutiny of regulators. .
“The process of getting a medicine or a vaccine approved is a lot of questions, a lot of experts are involved and there is external peer review of all the data and scientific discussions,” she said.
Amid a panic in Europe this week over the coronavirus shot fired by British-Swedish rival AstraZeneca, Tureci has rejected the idea that those running to develop a vaccine should cut any corners.
“There is a very rigid process in place and the process does not stop after a vaccine is approved,” she said. “It actually continues all over the world, where regulators have used reporting systems to investigate and evaluate the observations with us or other vaccines.”
Tureci and her colleagues all received the BioNTech vaccine themselves, she told the AP. “Yes, we have been vaccinated,” she said.
As BioNTech’s profile grew during the pandemic, it also has value, providing funds that the company can use to pursue its original goal of developing a new anti-cancer tool.
The vaccines, made by BioNTech-Pfizer and US rival Moderna, use messenger RNA, or mRNA, to enter the human body’s instructions for producing proteins that prepare it to attack a specific virus. The same principle can be applied to the immune system tumors.
“We have different cancer vaccinations based on mRNA,” said Tureci, who is BioNTech’s medical chief.
Asked when such a therapy is available, Tureci said: “It is very difficult to predict in innovative development. But we expect that in just a few years we will also have our vaccines (against) cancer on a place where we can offer it. to people. ‘
For now, Tureci and Sahin are trying to ensure that the vaccines ordered by governments are delivered and that the shots respond effectively to any new mutation in the virus.
On Friday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded the woman and man one of the highest decorations in the country, the Order of Merit, during a ceremony attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself a trained scientist.
“You started with a remedy to treat cancer in a single individual,” Steinmeier told the couple. “And today we have a vaccine for all mankind.”
Tureci said before the ceremony that the awarding of the award ‘is indeed an honor’.
But she insisted that the development of the vaccine was the work of many.
“It’s about the efforts of many: our team at BioNTech, all the partners involved, including governments, government authorities, who worked together urgently,” said Tureci. “As we see it, it is a recognition of this effort and also a celebration of science.”
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