Image: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa-Pool/dpa
The company Biontech developed one of the most successful vaccines against Covid-19. The company is now optimistic that it will be able to offer a vaccine against cancer before the end of this decade.
In 2020, the German company Biontech suddenly became famous when, in cooperation with the US group Pfizer, they developed the first corona vaccine approved in many countries – also for the Switzerland.
The company was originally founded to research a vaccine against cancer. This goal, the company founders have now announced, could now be much closer thanks to the progress made during work on the corona vaccine.
breakthroughs during pandemic
“We believe that a cure for cancer or one that could transform the lives of cancer patients is within reach,” said Ugur Sahin, who started Biontech with her husband Ozlem Tureci, in one Interview with the BBC. Sahin believes a corresponding vaccine could become a reality after “before 2030”.
When Tureci and Sahin founded Biontech in 2008, they wanted to research the potential of so-called mRNA to fight cancer. Then, 12 years later, when the pandemic hit, the company partnered with Pfizer to apply its advances in the field to developing a vaccine against Covid-19. With great success: The resulting vaccine was not only one of the first corona vaccines, but also one of the most effective.
«mRNA […] allows us to signal the body to make the medicine or the vaccine,” explains Tureci in the interview. “If you use mRNA as a vaccine, it acts as the enemy’s ‘wanted poster’.” In this way, antigens could distinguish cancer cells from normal cells – and intervene.
Cautious confidence
Before the pandemic, the effectiveness of mRNA in the production of vaccines had not yet been proven. That changed with the success of the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine, which encouraged scientists to investigate a possible application in the fight against cancer.
According to Tureci, her many years of work on a possible cancer vaccine have accelerated the development of the Covid 19 vaccine. “And now, in turn, our cancer research is benefiting from our experience in developing the Covid-19 vaccine.”
As confident as the researchers are about a breakthrough in cancer research, their hopes should be treated with caution. Many promising approaches to fighting cancer have ended in disappointment. “As scientists, we are always cautious about saying that we will have a cure for cancer,” notes Tureci. “We have had a number of breakthroughs and will continue to work on them.”