Dr Ugur Sahin and Dr Ozlem Tureci
When Dr Ugur Sahin took to the floor two years ago to speak in front of a room full of infectious disease experts, his company, BioNTech, which was largely focusing on cancer treatments, had never even brought a product to the market. However, Dr Sahin made an ambitious prediction when he said that his company may be capable of using the messenger RNA technology to rapidly develop a vaccine in the event of a pandemic.
In November this year, the Turkish-German doctor s prediction turned to reality when his company, in collaboration with Pfizer, announced that its vaccine candidate had proved 90 per cent effective in preventing the COVID-19 infection. With the announcement, the world breathed a huge sigh of relief, sparking a renewed sense of optimism premised on a hope that this could mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic.