Uğur Şahin

Turkish scientists Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, the co-founders of BioNTech, have announced that their cancer vaccine has succeeded in halting tumor growth and reducing its size in their initial tests.

Uğur Şahin, one of BioNTech's co-founders, has announced that their company's cancer treatment medicine will hit the shelves as early as 2026.

Şahin, who has been working with his wife Dr. Özlem Türeci for many years on treatments targeting various types of cancers, especially bowel cancer, stated that the drugs they have developed could be on the market in a few years.

Scientists Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, a Turkish-German couple who are the cofounders of BioNTech, the first effective COVID-19 vaccine that saved millions of lives, have said they are planning to start clinical studies in Türkiye next year under the BioNTech brand.

The Turkish-German couple, who invented BioNTech, the first effective vaccine against COVID-19, with the U.S. giant Pfizer and saved millions of lives, has now succeeded in developing a vaccine that prevents pancreatic cancer from reforming.

Two Turkish-German scientists were awarded Greece's Empress Theophano Prize on Oct. 13 for saving millions of lives with the development of the first vaccine against the coronavirus, according to the Empress Theophano Foundation. 

A new formulation is likely to be needed by the middle of next year to protect against COVID-19 as it mutates, Uğur Şahin, the chief executive of BioNTech that is behind one of the first mRNA vaccines against the coronavirus, has told the Financial Times.

The Germany-based BioNTech developed the COVID-19 vaccine jointly with the U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin, the co-founders of BioNTech, and Katalin Kario, who also works at the Germany-based, biotechnology firm has been announced as the recipients of Germany's most prestigious medicine prize for their mRNA vaccine work.

They will receive the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 2022 on March 14.

Pfizer initially turned down the offer of developing a coronavirus vaccine because its executives thought the virus would be rapidly contained, according to a report by the U.K.-based daily Telegraph.

The first generation vaccine developed by BioNTech-Pfizer works against coronavirus variants such as the Delta strain and does not need to be modified for the moment, the chief executive of German company BioNTech said on Aug. 9.

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With the administration of more than 5.3 million doses of COVID-19 jabs over the past week alone, a little over 25 percent of Turkey's population aged over 18 is now fully inoculated.