BioNTech co-founder Ozlem Tureci says Covid will be with us for years
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LONDON — The co-founder and chief medical officer of BioNTech, the German firm which developed a Covid-19 vaccine alongside Pfizer, told CNBC that the world “should not live in fear” of the virus.
It will be manageable. In the most recent episode of “The CNBC Conversation”, Dr. Ozlem Tureci stated that it has already begun to be manageable.
She said that it will be necessary to “return to normality” as the virus will continue to accompany us for some time.
She said that BioNTech continues to evaluate the upcoming coronavirus variants and she expects there to be many more.
It seems boosters are sufficient to protect against all variants that are in circulation, she stated.
However, it is important to keep screening for variants. Tureci said that there is a second pillar to this: we must be quick to adapt in the event that we do need to.
With her husband Chief Executive Ugur Shin, Tureci founded German-based BioNTech. Although she acknowledged that there was more information needed to help guide the way out of the pandemic in the future, Tureci could see how boosters might be administered “every 12-18 months”.
Covid vaccine in under a year
The company’s main focus had been on “pioneering individualized immunotherapies” for cancer medicine and using its mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) technology, which stimulates the body’s own immune response. The company is currently working to develop a Malaria vaccine.
Tureci stated that they already had the science and knowledge regarding immune mechanisms, and how these can be used to fight viruses. They could also leverage this.
“And the other pillar of our response was our technology, the mRNA technology, which allows [it] to be used as a vaccine format, which means it allows [it] to communicate with the immune system and teach it how to respond against this new enemy with high precision.”
This technology was ready to use because it had been used in clinical trials with cancer patients. She said that we knew the best way to do clinical trials, to use it in humans, and to create a manufacturing line.
Lessons learned
The company’s experience meant it was able to develop a vaccine in under a year.
Tureci answered CNBC’s question about whether this would be true for other vaccines. Although there had been “high priority” in order to combat the global threat, he said that they could learn from their mistakes and move forward.
Tureci said that there are several things that could be used to make future drug developments more effective. She also stated that non-pandemic diseases can be treated with the same drug development strategies as cancer, and other autoimmune disorders.
Natural gender balance
With the Oxford–AstraZeneca Covid vaccine also led by female scientists, Tureci feels such high-profile examples of gender balance in science is “very important” and has been one of the reasons behind BioNTech’s success.
We are gender-balanced, and that is what has made us successful as both a team as well as as a company. Nearly half of our workforce and on top leadership level are female.
However, one thing I have come to realize is that our teams don’t employ women because they want to fill any gender-quota…. It just so happens that half of the people we hire are women.” she said.
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