BioNTech: Will the first cancer vaccines arrive in 2023?

BioNTech founders give hope
Will the first cancer vaccines arrive in 2023?

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Even before the corona pandemic, BioNTech was researching cancer vaccines. The founders hope that they will be able to deliver the first results in 2023.

The founders of the pharmaceutical company BioNTech, Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin, are already planning the next big hit after the end of the Corona period: Even before the global pandemic broke out, their company was researching possible therapies to fight cancer. Like the founders in an interview with Bild.de reveal, they want to concentrate again on this branch of research – and we are certain that we will soon be able to develop individual vaccines against cancer.

Immune system as the key against cancer?

The mRNA technology, which is already used in the company’s corona vaccine, should help. Because the success and the good tolerance of the vaccine now demonstrably support the effectiveness of general mRNA vaccines. In their research, Türeci and Şahin place the focus on the human immune system: “(…) We want to use mechanisms that the immune system has perfected over millions of years of evolution in the fight against viruses and bacteria in a targeted manner for the treatment of cancer,” said Türeci in an interview .

The company’s founders had originally planned several studies on cancer therapy as early as 2020, but they could not be continued due to the corona pandemic. Thanks to the income from the production of the corona vaccine, research can now be resumed at full speed. “We are already in phase II with several of our own projects,” said Şahin. In this phase it is already checked whether the developed vaccines can help the patient compared to the standard of care. The BioNTech founders hope to be able to apply for the first approvals for their cancer vaccines as early as 2023. The prerequisite for this is, of course, that the ongoing studies and the resulting data sets are satisfactory.

mRNA technology is not a panacea

Türeci and Şahin also point out, however, that mRNA is not a panacea for all kinds of diseases. The BioNTech approach is more of a “construction kit” from which various combinable “tools” can be selected. Explicitly for cancer, she is convinced that mRNA technology is the right way to improve therapy in the future.

Source used: bild.de

Brigitte