Vaccine 1st puts spotlight on German pharma company BioNTech

email that arrived in ancient German city of Mainz shortly before 1 a.m. in morning marked a turning point in global effort to deliver a reliable vaccine against coronavirus pandemic - and for little-kwn biotechlogy company that helped develop it.

BioNTech has at times been portrayed as junior partner in U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's race to get approval for COVID vaccine a pandemic-weary world is desperately waiting for. In fact, company's use of gene techlogy to beat virus was key to rapid development of vaccine that British regulators OK'd for emergency use early Wednesday.

Founded twelve years ago, BioNTech specializes in harnessing so-called messenger RNA, or mRNA, to train immune system to attack hostile invers, from viruses to tumors. Until w, techlogy h never been approved for a drug in humans, but company's founders said y immediately saw potential when virus first emerged early this year.

“When we understood that this outbreak in China could become a global pandemic we felt obligation to start vaccine development," BioNTech's Chief Executive Ugur Sahin told Associated Press in a recent interview.

“We have techlogies in place which allow us to make vaccines and evaluate candidates in an ultra-fast fashion,” he said.

But Sahin, who came to Germany from Turkey with his parents as a young child, said he and his colleagues also understood y didn't have means to roll out mass trials of vaccine candidates with tens of thousands of participants, a key part of testing wher shot would be both effective and safe.

“It was very clear from beginning that we need to to go into a collaboration,” said Sahin.

He immediately reached out to Pfizer, with whom BioNTech h previously started work on a flu vaccine, and researchers at two companies began working toger even before commercial contracts h been signed.

“This trust-based relationship is one of key factors why we have been so fast, because it allowed allowed us to share data, to share information, to start to avoid any of delay,” Sahin said.

What followed was a flurry of activity as BioNTech and Pfizer raced rivals such as Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Moderna to become first to get emergency authorization for a COVID vaccine. Unlike rivals in China and Russia, all of companies have followed established path of conducting trials in three sts, publishing results as y go along and submitting m to independent regulators for review.

While authorities in United States, Britain and European Union indicated y would make a decision before end of year, it wasn't clear who would be first until U.K. authorities anunced y'd approved BioNTech-Pfizer shot Wednesday.

“It was (an email) very early this morning, in early, early hours from regulators saying we h received approval,” BioNTech's Chief Commercial Officer, Sean Marett, told AP.

Marett, a softly spoken Brit with long experience in pharmaceutical industry, said company hasn't h time to celebrate yet.

"We’re too busy worrying about packing boxes for U.K.,” he said, ding that first shipments would likely hit ro in coming 24 to 48 hours.

Marett dismissed suggestions that British authorities might have taken shortcuts, saying y h asked "very, very deep questions and detailed questions, just like any or ncy.”

BioNTech hopes sales of vaccine will more than cover cost of development and production. Toger with Pfizer and Chinese distributor Fosun Pharma it hopes to ship at least 1.3 billion doses of COVID vaccine in 2021.

“We’re a biotechlogy company, loss-making, and of course we need to generate some money so we can keep in business,” he said.

Marett said company currently has 1,800 staff and expects to grow in coming years, its focus will remain on pushing developing new drugs. Sahin, who co-founded BioNTech along with Ozlem Tureci, his wife, said that aside from flu vaccine being developed with Pfizer company is also alrey working with ors on a dozen different shots including for HIV and tuberculosis.

“BioNTech stands for Bio New Techlogies, and that’s what fascinates us about what we can do, really use new techlogies to dress disease,” Marett told AP. “We’ve hopefully demonstrated, at least with first approval, that that approach may be useful to society."