Biontech is setting the pace with cancer vaccination

It was already known that the corona vaccine manufacturer Biontech was working on a variety of other vaccines and drugs - especially against various types of cancer. The two Biontech founders Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin have been confident a long time ago that various types of cancer will not only be treated in the future, but even cured. Now, Biontech is setting the pace with cancer vaccination and the two researchers want to translate their announcements into action. On Wednesday, the Mainz-based pharmaceutical company celebrated the topping-out ceremony for the "world's first plant of its kind for the manufacture of individualized products for cancer immunotherapy," as CEO Sahin said. If the ongoing developments are successful, more than 10,000 batches are to be produced there annually for the tailor-made therapy of people with cancer. As with the corona vaccine, the basis is the messenger molecule mRNA. The medical director and Biontech co-founder Türeci said that two of the company's immunotherapy approaches against cancer are currently in clinical phase two. They target the treatment of colon and black skin cancers. Türeci recalled that Biontech was founded 13 years ago "driven by the dream" to develop patient-specific drugs for the treatment of cancer. "That is why the future Biontech plant is very important to me." she said. Sahin admitted that Biontech was taking an entrepreneurial risk. There is "no guarantee" that the research will ultimately be successful and that a drug will be approved. But if everything works out, Biontech will have the opportunity to start production quickly. The future production facility, which is scheduled to go into operation in 2023, is located in an industrial park, a few minutes from the company headquarters. 500 people should work there once. For the production of its corona vaccine, Biontech took over the Marburg plant of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis last autumn - before the Mainz-based company could even be sure that their vaccine, which was still in the clinical test phase at the time, would once be in the EU USA or elsewhere is approved. This investment has paid off. If the company succeeds in a similar coup in cancer research, the construction of the new plant in Mainz could get production rolling right from the start. The operational managing director Sierk Poetting pointed out that Biontech had concentrated almost all of its forces on the development of the corona vaccine in the "Lightspeed" project. Nevertheless, a "small but fine team" continued to work on the search for a cancer drug. Prime Minister Malu Dreyer said that Biontech's efforts in cancer research are a ray of hope for cancer patients. The topping-out ceremony is a special day for Mainz and Rhineland-Palatinate and she is proud that Biontech has its headquarters in the state. "We want to do everything to ensure that you continue to have good framework conditions," said the SPD politician at the small celebration in the shell to the three Biontech board members. The future field of biotechnology and the further development of the science location Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the priorities of the Ampel coalition. If Biontech succeeds in establishing itself on the market with further mRNA active ingredients, that would be a big leap for the still young biotech startup. Observers repeatedly criticize the hype surrounding the Mainz-based company, which so far only has one product to offer.