How BioNTech's husband-and-wife team developed Pfizer's vaccine

A Lancet article about a mysterious virus in Wuhan in January inspired the couple

20201112 Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci

Ugur Sahin, left, and his wife Ozlem Tureci, the co-founders of German biotech firm BioNTech that developed a coronavirus vaccine for Pfizer. (Source photos by Reuters and courtesy of BioNTech)

ILGIN YORULMAZ, Contributing writer

TOKYO -- When Ugur Sahin, co-founder of the German biotech company BioNTech, first picked up an article published in January in the Lancet medical journal about a mysterious virus in Wuhan, he told his wife and business partner Ozlem Tureci that he expected it to spread to Germany by April.

By March, schools and kindergartens in most German states had been shut to slow the coronavirus spread.

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