TIME Magazine - 'Inside BioNTech'

'Inside Biontech' The Facilities Making the World's Most Prevalent COVID-19 Vaccine for TIME Magazine

If you’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19, chances are pretty high that you’re benefiting from a product made by BioNTech. The German biotech company, co-founded by a husband-and-wife team of scientists, developed the vaccine that became not only the first to earn authorization in the U.S. for COVID-19 in December but also the first ever based on a new technology involving the genetic material mRNA.

In interviews in December and March, co-founders Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci spoke about their whirlwind year and their partnership with U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer to test and manufacture the vaccine. Over three days in late March, they also opened up their new manufacturing plant to TIME for the first step-by-step look at how their lifesaving, and potentially pandemic-ending, vaccine is made.

Text excerpt by ALICE PARK & ARYN BAKER for TIME