BioNTech
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BioNTech envisioned the site making hundreds of millions of vaccines a year, but has since shifted its pipeline to other modalities while mRNA technology continues to face headwinds in the U.S.
COVID-19 partners Pfizer and BioNTech have been unable to recruit healthy adults aged 50 to 64 fast enough to deliver relevant post-marketing data. Moderna is apparently also facing enrollment challenges.
The move comes as BioNTech shifts to being a multiproduct commercial biotech, allowing Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci to transition back into research on next-generation mRNA therapeutics.
After advancing in lockstep through the pandemic, the fortunes of the biotechs have diverged as their use of COVID-19 windfalls has taken shape.
Biopharma companies—including AstraZeneca, BioNTech and Agios—peered farther into the future on the second day of JPM, setting both revenue and R&D targets through the end of the decade.
These deals radically reshaped the biopharma world, either by one vaccine rival absorbing another, a Big Pharma doubling down after another failed acquisition or, in the case of Pfizer and Novo, two heavyweights duking it out over a hot obesity biotech.
In the midst of regulatory and political upheaval, biopharma’s R&D engine kept running, churning out highs and lows in equal parts. Here are some of this year’s most glorious clinical trial victories.
A BioNTech spokesperson downplayed the news, insisting that the two companies remain “close” and have a “strong collaboration.”
This week’s release of the Make America Health Again report revealed continued emphasis on vaccine safety; Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s faceoff with senators last week amounted to political theater; the FDA promises complete response letters in real time and shares details on a new rare disease framework; and Summit disappoints at the World Conference on Lung Cancer in Barcelona.
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