Imagine if it wasn't a lab(with all the positive associations of doing science), and instead they were middle managers or accountants. That kind of behavior would be considered unhealthy.
It depends on the lab work. Particularly when dealing with long-running biology experiments, not keeping up with certain "maintenance" can ruin months of work. And if a researcher is going on a honeymoon, they likely need to do some last-minute preparation for their absence.
I feel like there’s a threshold for fame that needs to be met for giving credit in the English-language, mainstream media. A famous name like Stephen Hawking would get directly credited for a result. A less famous researcher’s result would get credited to their school (eg MIT). Outside of well known western names and institutions, the result would get credited to the country (eg China or Japan).
This might have something to do with national bias.
In Germany, where BioNTech is based, news articles (or rather: German-language articles) either mention BioNTech exclusively or cite them as the primary player in the BioNTech / Pfizer partnership.
Similar to the reason why most small biotechs don’t get credit when a big pharma company launches their drug - coming up with a drug candidate is critical and really hard, but it gets you about 1/3rd of the way to the market (at least as measured by dollars). Taking it through clinical trials, regulatory approval and manufacturing is a complex (and massively expensive) process that requires expertise typically only big pharma has (not to say smaller company don't roll their own, they do, but they are often slower and sometimes stumble).
And this is to not downplay BioNTech's role. Proving that your idea works in biotech takes some massive cohones. No doubt they took a ton of shit on their way to this point.
FAZ (German press) portrays Ugur Sahin, BioNTech's founder and CEO, as kindof a nerd who doesn't like press conferences, sticks to facts, and rather spends his time in the lab.
For a particularly ridiculous example, see athletes in Northern Ireland; the British press often refer to them as British when they win, and Irish when they don't!
It’s called having a good PR firm, I’m pretty sure the press just write up the press releases. Certainly worked when a ship owned by one shipping company sank and Maersk got the blame in the press even though they were only chartering it.
I wonder how the fact that this is a German company relates to people in the US always being told that they have to pay multiples of international drug prices so the US companies can do the research the rest of the world is not doing.
One of the costliest things a pharmaceutical company does in R&D stage is clinical trials and scaling later on... and that's the reason why Pfizer was sought out for this. Of coure kudos to these German scientists, but much kudos should also be given to Pfizer for their integral role to play it out to the last mile.
The headquarter of their company is only 10 miles from my home, in a university town, full of young people. So blessed that maybe a part of the solution to this crisis comes from "my" region.
I was born in Mainz, and lived there for 30 years! Beautiful city, if anybody is in the area, come visit (but don't go to the "Ebsch Seit"=Wiesbaden :)
The university has a particle accelerator (MAMI), they do tours!
Huh, neat. My father is from Mainz, and I still have family there (I'm Canadian). I've been over many times, last time for my Oma's funeral. My Opa worked for the city for decades, helped with post-war reconstruction, I believe the title was Baudirektor at some point, not clear. When I was 19 I went over for the first time and over several days he took me through the whole core of the city, building by building telling me the history of what was there before the war, what was there now, things he was involved in, where he went to school, his grandparents, their parents, and so on. Made a huge impression on me.
no idea why this is getting downvoted. This is super relevant. Germany has had at best handled their Turkish immigrants in a step-motherly fashion and until today you're automatically at a huge disadvantage with a Turkish sounding name / look in a lot of roles and industries. Heck the government even had a plan up until the 90s around "sending them back to Turkey".
So if anything the German media needs to do a way better job of highlighting this.
So I've heard this is will be the first mRNA vaccine on the market, ever. How worried should I be, given the political pressure to get a COVID19 vaccine to market as quickly as possible?
I wouldn't sorry too much. We understand a lot of old worries and so we know they don't apply. They have a lot of data from previous forms of this type of things suggesting it is safe. We know the that injected "things" break down very quickly in the body, which again makes us believe there won't be any long term problems. Of course in the end who knows. There could be something, and we may not know for 10 years.
On the other hand, we know that Covid is killing a large number of people right now. We have enough data to confidently state that the long term adverse effects are overall less bad than Covid.
Disclaimer: It's late, and I need to confirm this statement from a immunology researcher in my network. If you are a R&D professional with the right expertise, please feel free to jump in.
There are two risks at hand here: (a) using the novel mRNA vaccine technology, and (b) using it with the SARS-CoV2 virus. While I can not say anything about the former, the aforementioned researcher in my network mentioned that as with Human papillomavirus (HPV) and other cancerogenic viruses, the SARS-CoV2 family might have tumor generating effects. Using it with a vaccine could be risky - getting infected could be risky, too.
> How worried should I be (...)
This is why we have multi stage clinical trials. Fast tracking a trial does not necessarily mean that it less testing will be done. On the contrary, the amount of resources behind these vaccine candidates are enormeous. Of course, long term effects are hard to catch. But the same applies for the long term effects of an SARS-CoV2 infection. Time and experiments will tell. Let's hope for the best.
Great story, it’s not quite there yet; finalisation of the testing, and mass production to be done.
But with the huge financial and credibility boost I hope the team can follow their passion to solve other medical issues.
Quite an insight to switch from cancer therapy to COVID-19 vaccine, and quite the opportunity to be able to deploy 500 researchers onto it at such an early stage.
I hope this bolsters their original search for cancer treatment.
Quite an insight to switch from cancer therapy to COVID-19 vaccine
Actually not at all. BioNTech's entire platform was customized RNA therapeutics that target the immune system to a particular patient's tumor. Basically cancer vaccines.
How can they make sure that the mass produced version of the vaccine doesn't have a "mutation" (extra/missing nucleotide) in some shots while producing the mRNA?
Everyone is excited about "90% efficacy", but nobody mentions the rate of side effects. Hmm. If this is injected into several billion people, twice into each person, wouldn't you want to know at least an estimate of the ratio before you do that? Especially with mandatory vaccination looming on the horizon.
there are many vaccines in trials. why is this one getting so much attention? american PR machine hard at work? sounds like they already have the movie plot perfected but they haven't published an article yet
Can’t get past the consent screen in chrome on an iPhone on either mobile or desktop page - agree button is off page. Surprising for a big site like Reuters
BionTech needs to hire a top tier marketing and PR team immediately, they are failing bad at early media mentions, press releases and coverage. Unfortunately it's probably not within their DNA and they may not realize what is happening around them.
This is a monster, monster opportunity and just 'existing' won't leverage it to the extent they can - it will help them fund, hire more, expand more, do more of what they are doing.
So that they will turn into a mega company with nothing but PR, capital and marketing? I think the fact that they are so focused on medicine and science should rather be the norm in medicine.
The fact that Pfizer can spin this story on their name is disturbing and dangeruous behaviour that should not be the norm.
Seems to me that they have all the PR they need: it was enough to convince Pfizer to partner with them on something unknown and invest a ton of money into taking their idea from a lab to mass production in just a few months. If they had tried this along it would have been years before this vaccine was ready (if it ever got ready - odds are someone else would have something working first, or they go bankrupt getting the paperwork together)
What would they get from that? Even more market capitalization? Unlikely, they are getting plenty as is. The second tier visibility might even help their stock price a little as some particularly uninformed speculants might still fall victim to the illusion that they know more than their peers when buying shares of "the secret behind the Pfizer vaccine".
[+] [-] ghoomketu|5 years ago|reply
This would be the definition of pure passion and what it takes to accomplish something like this.
These people are a totally different breed compared to people I know. Kudos to them for their achievements.
[+] [-] raxxorrax|5 years ago|reply
I think it is great and I hope they get acknowledged for their work. Or anyone that tries to find solution to the current sorry state.
[+] [-] asdasdad12313|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oh_sigh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marzetti|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jml7c5|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gourabmi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sschueller|5 years ago|reply
Sure credit goes to both but this "Dream Team" is BioNTech.
[+] [-] johnwalkr|5 years ago|reply
The exception is underdog stories.
[+] [-] BjoernKW|5 years ago|reply
In Germany, where BioNTech is based, news articles (or rather: German-language articles) either mention BioNTech exclusively or cite them as the primary player in the BioNTech / Pfizer partnership.
[+] [-] yokaze|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|5 years ago|reply
And this is to not downplay BioNTech's role. Proving that your idea works in biotech takes some massive cohones. No doubt they took a ton of shit on their way to this point.
[+] [-] tannhaeuser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsynnott|5 years ago|reply
For a particularly ridiculous example, see athletes in Northern Ireland; the British press often refer to them as British when they win, and Irish when they don't!
[+] [-] fs111|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andy_ppp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fabian2k|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dicomdan|5 years ago|reply
DW (German government news) refers to both companies in communication.
[+] [-] forgotmypw17|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teraku|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyingq|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spaetzleesser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pen2l|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fastball|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geff82|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davrosthedalek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmrdporcupine|5 years ago|reply
It's a lovely city.
[+] [-] jansan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] C19is20|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zoobab|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akie|5 years ago|reply
In this time of open racism and public hostility to immigration, this needs to be pointed out and repeated.
It was children of Turkish immigrants to Germany.
[+] [-] kamakazizuru|5 years ago|reply
So if anything the German media needs to do a way better job of highlighting this.
[+] [-] MrBuddyCasino|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluGill|5 years ago|reply
On the other hand, we know that Covid is killing a large number of people right now. We have enough data to confidently state that the long term adverse effects are overall less bad than Covid.
[+] [-] wuschel|5 years ago|reply
There are two risks at hand here: (a) using the novel mRNA vaccine technology, and (b) using it with the SARS-CoV2 virus. While I can not say anything about the former, the aforementioned researcher in my network mentioned that as with Human papillomavirus (HPV) and other cancerogenic viruses, the SARS-CoV2 family might have tumor generating effects. Using it with a vaccine could be risky - getting infected could be risky, too.
> How worried should I be (...)
This is why we have multi stage clinical trials. Fast tracking a trial does not necessarily mean that it less testing will be done. On the contrary, the amount of resources behind these vaccine candidates are enormeous. Of course, long term effects are hard to catch. But the same applies for the long term effects of an SARS-CoV2 infection. Time and experiments will tell. Let's hope for the best.
[+] [-] zeristor|5 years ago|reply
But with the huge financial and credibility boost I hope the team can follow their passion to solve other medical issues.
Quite an insight to switch from cancer therapy to COVID-19 vaccine, and quite the opportunity to be able to deploy 500 researchers onto it at such an early stage.
I hope this bolsters their original search for cancer treatment.
[+] [-] refurb|5 years ago|reply
Actually not at all. BioNTech's entire platform was customized RNA therapeutics that target the immune system to a particular patient's tumor. Basically cancer vaccines.
[+] [-] haskaalo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ripvanwinkle|5 years ago|reply
More stories like these might help moderate some of the borderline right wing anti-immigration folks
[+] [-] m0zg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cannedslime|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] supergirl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Havoc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
This is a monster, monster opportunity and just 'existing' won't leverage it to the extent they can - it will help them fund, hire more, expand more, do more of what they are doing.
[+] [-] ictebres|5 years ago|reply
The fact that Pfizer can spin this story on their name is disturbing and dangeruous behaviour that should not be the norm.
[+] [-] tmerse|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluGill|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aeyes|5 years ago|reply
Also, it's a vaccine - what do you need marketing for? It's not like you are going to buy it in a convenience store.
[+] [-] usrusr|5 years ago|reply