The boy of Turkish origin arrives in Germany as an immigrant, and today is among the richest people in the country
Boyko Borissov invited him to Bulgaria
We will have to be immunized every two years because the virus will be around us for a long time, says the scientist.
Professor Ugur Shahin, the founder of the German technology company Bayontek, was overtaken by the unquenchable fame of the pioneers.
He became the first scientist in the world to develop and register a coronavirus vaccine with his wife, Ozlem Tureci, and the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. At the same time, applying a revolutionary technology – information RNA, which gives the body the code for early recognition of the enemy and the launch of the antibody factory to neutralize it.
In the weeks when the vaccine was approved first in the United States and then in the EU at the end of last year, Prof. Shahin
became more famous than
Hollywood celebrity
No vaccine that was later authorized was associated with a particular person, as happened to him. Then the noise gradually subsided and the professor, who is one of the richest people in Germany with a fortune of 4.2 billion, returned to the usual course of quiet heroism for scientists.
Prime Minister Boyko Borissov recently recalled him, inviting him to Bulgaria and personally thanking him for what he has achieved to bring people’s lives back to normal. “The turning point in the battle with COVID-19 was the creation of vaccines. With their help, we can deal with the pandemic and regain the freedom that the virus took away from us. Thank you for the given hope and opportunity to have the previous way of life again “, said the Bulgarian Prime Minister to Prof. Shahin. And offered him to get acquainted with the Bulgarian traditions for the production of drugs and vaccines and especially with the activities of BulBio.
Ugur Sahin was only 4 years old when he arrived in Turkey from Turkey with his mother. His father already worked at the Ford plant in Cologne to provide for the family.
As a child he was a lot
passionate about football and
loved to read
scientific books,
which he took from the library.
He studied medicine and graduated from the University of Cologne with a degree in immunotherapy for cancer cells. “We finished classes around 4 pm and then my colleagues left, and I went up to the lab and sometimes woke up until 4 am,” the future scientist and entrepreneur recalled.
The young man decided to follow his supervisor and do a doctoral dissertation at the University of Saarland in Homburg, where his future wife, Ozlem Tureci, who is a doctoral daughter, is studying medicine. She is no less passionate about science than he is. The couple married in 2002, leaving their lab for a short time to enroll in civil law. Then they return to continue working. Their daughter was born 4 years later. This is how the dream team, composed only by the married couple, appears.
Since 2001, scientists have settled in Mainz, the city of the Rhine, famous for its carnival culture and where Gutenberg invented book printing. At the University Hospital in Mainz, they want to set up a laboratory to try
to Understand How Immune
system can be
learned to attack
cancer cells
When this endeavor proved very difficult, the family decided to set up their own private laboratory. Their first company, called Ganymede, was founded in 2001. It is developing innovative therapies with antibodies against cancer cells. Fifteen years later, a Japanese pharmaceutical company bought it for 1.6 billion euros, the Guardian newspaper writes.
Colleagues describe Shahin as a calm man who likes to read scientific journals rather than follow the quotations of his companies on the stock exchange. He arrives at business meetings in his typical jeans, wearing his bicycle helmet, and a backpack. Until now, he has been cycling to work every day, crossing Mainz along the bike lanes. He says this is the most efficient way to get around in big cities.
“He is a lot himself
modest but his ambitions
are just the opposite –
they are vast ”,
described by his relatives.
The couple built their second company, Bayontek, in 2008 together with the Austrian oncologist Christoph Huber, who is still on the board. It is in this company, which today employs more than 1,300 people from 60 countries, that the pair of scientists are developing immunotherapeutic treatments for cancer, using genetic material called messenger RNA to train the human body to produce its own antigen. Years of work in this direction turned out to be the golden opportunity when in the beginning of 2020 the news about the new coronavirus began to worry the world.
Shahin read for the first time details about the terrible infection in the magazine “Lancet” on January 24, 2020. He
immediately assembles the team
its to let them know that
begin to create
vaccine
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which has worked with Bayontek to develop a flu vaccine, has not hesitated for a long time whether to support the initiative. In March, when Germany entered its first lockdown, 20 preparations were ready, but only 5 of them entered the testing program. It is called “Lightspeed” because it must act at the speed of light.
The breakthrough comes in November, when it turns out that the most promising of the vaccines has shown over 90% effectiveness in global clinical trials. In an interview at the time, Shahin said he was ready to vaccinate with his own product without hesitation, but said he
must first go to
most in need of it –
adults, chronically ill
and first-line doctors
After the registration of the vaccine, the shares of Prof. Shahin’s company jumped so sharply that he dawned as a multi-billionaire in a few days. The scientist’s fortune is now estimated at 4.2 billion euros, making him one of the top 500 richest people on the planet. In Germany, the man, who holds more than 60 patents, even ranks 34th in wealth, The Welt newspaper notes, explaining that Sahin owns 17.3% of Bayontek.
Recently, the creator of the vaccine said that life could return to normal by the end of the summer if most people choose to be vaccinated. According to him, the coronavirus will probably continue to circulate as the flu for at least another 10 years and will need to be revaccinated every two years.
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