Three years ago no one had heard of BioNTech. Today the German biotechnology firm is a household name, which last year raked in revenues of $19bn. The company owes both the lustre and the lucre chiefly to the successful mrna covid-19 vaccine which it developed in partnership with Pfizer, an American drug giant. Yet even the effective jab has not immunised it from a downturn afflicting the biotech industry. On August 8th BioNTech reported that sales fell by 40% in the second quarter, year on year, as fewer people are left unjabbed and unboosted. Its share price tumbled by nearly 9%.
The biotech industry is particularly vulnerable to
→ Continue reading at The Economist
