Thomas Strüngmann (born 1950) founded generic drug maker Hexal AG ($1.6 billion sales during 2004) in 1986. In 2005, he and his brother Andreas sold Hexal for $6.7B. [1] They earned $8B on their stake in BioNTech SE, the German company developing the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. [2] They own approximately 50% of the company as well as significant ownership in 4SC and Immatics. [3] He currently has the largest health-care earned fortune with his brother. [4]
The brothers operate out of a family office, Athos Service. [1]
Pfizer Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer (1824–1906) and his cousin Charles F. Erhart (1821–1891).
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is the medicine and therapeutic regulatory agency of the Australian Government. As part of the Department of Health and Aged Care, the TGA regulates the quality, supply and advertising of medicines, pathology devices, medical devices, blood products and most other therapeutics. Any items that claim to have a therapeutic effect, are involved in the administration of medication, or are otherwise covered by the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989, the Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990, or a ministerial order, must be approved by the TGA and registered in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods.
Patrick Soon-Shiong is a Chinese-South African transplant surgeon, billionaire businessman, bioscientist, and media proprietor. He is the inventor of the drug Abraxane, which became known for its efficacy against lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer. Soon-Shiong is the founder of NantWorks, a network of healthcare, biotech, and artificial intelligence startups; an adjunct professor of surgery and executive director of the Wireless Health Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles; and a visiting professor at Imperial College London and Dartmouth College. Soon-Shiong has published more than 100 scientific papers and has more than 230 issued patents worldwide on advancements spanning numerous fields in technology and medicine.
Sinovac Biotech Ltd. is a Chinese biopharmaceutical company based in Haidian District, Beijing that focuses on the research, development, manufacture, and commercialization of vaccines that protect against human infectious diseases. The company was listed on the Nasdaq but the exchange halted Sinovac's trading in February 2019 due to a proxy fight. The company has faced bribery probes in China.
Novavax, Inc. is an American biotechnology company based in Gaithersburg, Maryland that develops vaccines to counter serious infectious diseases. Prior to 2020, company scientists developed experimental vaccines for influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as Ebola and other emerging infectious diseases. During 2020, the company redirected its efforts to focus on development and approval of its NVX-CoV2373 vaccine for COVID-19.
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. is a Chinese pharmaceutical company. It is mostly owned by Fosun International.
James Monsees is an American businessman, and the co-founder and former chief product officer of Juul Labs, an electronic cigarette company.
AD5-nCOV, trade-named Convidecia, is a single-dose viral vector vaccine for COVID-19 developed by CanSino Biologics. It conducted its Phase III trials in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia with 40,000 participants.
CanSino Biologics, often abbreviated as CanSinoBIO, is a Chinese vaccine company.
Katalin Karikó is a Hungarian-American biochemist who specializes in RNA-mediated mechanisms. Her research has been the development of in vitro-transcribed mRNA for protein therapies. She co-founded and was CEO of RNARx, from 2006 to 2013. Since 2013, she has been associated with BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals, first as a vice president and promoted to senior vice president in 2019. She also is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was a public–private partnership initiated by the United States government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. The first news report of Operation Warp Speed was on April 29, 2020, and the program was officially announced on May 15, 2020. It was headed by Moncef Slaoui from May 2020 to January 2021 and by David A. Kessler from January to February 2021. At the end of February 2021, Operation Warp Speed was transferred into the responsibilities of the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
BioNTech SE is a German biotechnology company based in Mainz that develops and manufactures active immunotherapies for patient-specific approaches to the treatment of diseases. It develops pharmaceutical candidates based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) for use as individualized cancer immunotherapies, as vaccines against infectious diseases and as protein replacement therapies for rare diseases, and also engineered cell therapy, novel antibodies and small molecule immunomodulators as treatment options for cancer.
COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, abbreviated as COVAX, is a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines directed by the GAVI vaccine alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the World Health Organization (WHO), alongside key delivery partner UNICEF. It is one of the four pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, an initiative begun in April 2020 by the WHO, the European Commission, and the government of France as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVAX coordinates international resources to enable low-to-middle-income countries equitable access to COVID-19 tests, therapies, and vaccines. UNICEF is the key delivery partner, leveraging its experience as the largest single vaccine buyer in the world and working on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccine doses, as well as logistics, country readiness and in-country delivery.
Uğur Şahin is a German oncologist and immunologist. He is the CEO of BioNTech, which developed one of the major vaccines against COVID-19. His main fields of research are cancer research and immunology.
The Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, sold under the brand name Comirnaty, is an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine developed by the German biotechnology company BioNTech. For its development, BioNTech collaborated with American company Pfizer to carry out clinical trials, logistics, and manufacturing. It is authorized for use in people aged five years and older in some jurisdictions, twelve years and older in some jurisdictions, and for people sixteen years and older in other jurisdictions, to provide protection against COVID-19, caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The vaccine is given by intramuscular injection. It is composed of nucleoside-modified mRNA (modRNA) encoding a mutated form of the full-length spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which is encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles. Initial advice indicated that vaccination required two doses given 21 days apart, but the interval was later extended to up to 42 days in the US, and up to four months in Canada.
Israel's COVID-19 vaccination programme, officially named "Give a Shoulder", began on 19 December 2020, and has been praised for its speed, having given twenty percent of the Israeli population the first dose of the vaccines' two dose regimen in the span of three weeks.
The MVC COVID-19 vaccine, designated MVC-COV1901 and also known as the Medigen COVID-19 vaccine, is a protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine developed by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corporation in Taiwan, American company Dynavax Technologies, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
COVID-19 vaccination in Japan started later than in most other major economies. The country has frequently been regarded as "slow" in its vaccination efforts.
This article documents the chronology of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2021, which originated in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Some developments may become known or fully understood only in retrospect. Reporting on this pandemic began in December 2019.
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